Zvuky Prahy / Sounds of Prague

terénní nahrávky, zvukové umění, rádio, zvukové procházky
field recordings, sound art, radio, sound walks

Pigeon maps

Tags: birds
Creator: milos (Miloš Vojtěchov...)
Submitted: 2017-11-22
Recorded: 2017-04-22
Licence: Creative Commons Licence

In the Anglická Street on the Vinohrady, was the Pigeon House - abandoned three-storey building with a famous restaurant on the ground floor. The rest was inhabited by hundreds of pigeons. About a year ago the owner started to reconstruct the house and so the birds were expelled. For month they were coming back, sitting on the roof and waiting until they could again fly through the broken windows inside. Pigeons hear ultrasound and use complex maps inside their brains for orientation. Pigeon maps are determined by several issues: by the position of the Sun, by the Earth's geomagnetic field, by eyesight and smell. At night, therefore, the pigeons need to sit, sleep, quietly talking together to make sure everything is fine. The recording is not from Vinohrady, but from the pigeonhouse in Židlochovice. It was captured by Tomáš Šenkyřík early in the morning, when pigeons wake up.
http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiocustica/osoby/_zprava/senkyrik-tomas-bio--479176