Urban Wildlife. Pigeons | Documentary | Science Channel

strengthening their homeland they stated we're serving the cause of peace the sixth world festival of the youth and students is on 28 July 1958 this period will later be called Khrushchev thought the most liberal period in the history of the USSR the youth forums logo is dove by Pablo Picasso until now this picture still is the best-known symbol of good and peace the demonstrators proclaimed an unbreakable friendship with the Soviet Union and commitment to proceed towards socialism the Spanish artist painted his famous picture in 1949 the Dove became the emblem of the World Congress of these supporters held in Paris almost immediately it was nine years before the Moscow youth festival but in fact the Dove became a symbol of peace long before Picasso was born although the artist was not a deeply religious man he must have known the famous Bible story about the Great Flood and Noah's Ark Noah floating in the huge sea at once understands that there is not enough niobium and blood when there was little chance for survival the Dove flew to him with an olive branch returned because he was faithful and thankful to the man who saved him he forgot their intimate Kotori was passe pigeons were called specific and unique for centuries they are the standard of faith messengers of good and a symbol of the Holy Spirit but many citizens of the modern mega police will probably object there is nothing sacred to these birds in fact of course the pigeon is a symbol of good and peace but if you think about it of course this bird sometimes does totally terrible things visions are the rightful owners of the city skies today there are more than two million of them in Moscow alone these visions are actually great they have replaced our traditional wood species from our cities they live in addicts eat out of dumpsters and carry dozens of infections so citizens gave a completely different name to this symbol of good and peace long ago rats with wings well we could say yes disease vectors that can be spread to pets with rare exceptions to human you would continue later the great flood was 5000 years ago according to the Bible and since then these animals have changed significantly but pigeons haven't lost their most amazing ability always to get back home it was thanks to this feature they were so valued throughout human history we will test out in our film how their unique navigation system works and find out why a dub turned into a rant with wings from the symbol of good and peace [Music] [Music] this is your tea Gordon he has been professionally engaged in breeding pigeons for 25 years and he specializes in so-called sports breathe such birds do not just always return home but they do it faster than all their relatives the highest-level engage in greeting is a pigeon who can orientate can cooperate with teams can bring pleasure with competition besides their beauty we will arrange an unusual competition to find out why pigeons return home and how they find their way this vision named Pele is one of the fastest and most experienced in Yuri's pigeon-house you can get a few hundred thousand rules for this individual in a bird market but Pele's rival also knows his own value had been engaged professionally in motorsports for 15 years he has participated in various competitions several times he competed with other motorcycle racers and motorists but has never tried to outrun a bird in his life our racers need to cover more than 120 miles according to the rules to start is near Nova Meskwaki in the Tula region in the village nikolskaya the finish at you record of speech in-house in Moscow because pigeons always fly home well let's compete we've really prepared both of the competitors before they start a portable camera was said on the pigeons back well good luck with the race lately we've lift our bike with five shot cruise cameras as well [Music] [Music] we fix the radar beacon on each participant that could define the exact location of the object [Music] so the participants of our unusual race are rushing to the finish and the pigeon already has a clear advantage to the beacons while the motorcyclist is wandering along back roads risking at every turn the vision purposely and calmly flies straight to home but in fact this guy is also against acara zone for a bird the wood pigeon is mean mainly hunted this is the largest wood pigeon pigeons fly in flocks consequently from the place to sleep to the feeding area and vice versa Hunter said stuffed birds on this fly wait and see it and keep watching over them today about 300 species of the pigeons family is now designed for the Millennium of evolution most of them learn better to keep away from a human so the wild pigeon is an enviable trophy for any hunter [Music] many hunters came to southern at Central America and Attendance Americans and especially Italians Europeans take these pigeons to themselves and cook later pigeons are also common in France I saw plucks pigeon carcasses sold in the market of provinces it is considered to be a delicacy however several species from the pigeons family went the other evolutionary path when they became so-called sin anthropods that is they adapted to life near humans they're descendants of wild pigeons or blue rock pigeons are the most common and numerous species on the planet actually the phenomenon of this kind of bird Sinatra possession is because some kind of bird finds the optimal conditions connected with feeding connected with the provisions of nesting places some optimal conditions of biotope and they begin in general to settle and prevail over other bird species it is known that the first in anthropic pigeons the progenitors of modern city blue rock pigeons appeared more than 5,000 years ago but scientists are still arguing about the reasons of the emergence of species some believe that the ancestors of our blue rock pigeons first started settling on the roofs of ancient temples that were often built on rocky coasts next to pigeon nests others believed that these birds were the first poultry they were raised in caves for eggs and meat but there is a third the most popular hypothesis pigeons themselves began to settle near humans after agriculture development barley and wheat are still their favorite delicacy yep assault I came and poured some without waiting my ducks turkeys will come here feel the whole place mr. Kumar and I should wave a bag so that at least the geese come the ornithological inch Starman has been working at the Moscow zoo for almost ten years here is a unique collection 259 species of birds from all over the world but mostly the pigeons are often met they are probably the only ones who fly here on their own Rock pigeons moreover have occupied the territory of the zoo who long ago but also divided into zones [Music] some of the pigeons eat for example on the new territorialism on the pond while the other ones eat on the big pond here and as a rule they do like this for example if there is too much they begin to fight amongst themselves by its chirping they're molting that's why of course they tried to divide the territory somehow fidelity to thoria it has always been like this in the animal world everyone for himself kill or be killed and the strongest survives but there are much more severe laws in the concrete jungle when it comes to feeding it turns out that the symbol of good and peace perfectly knows exactly what war is some big adult can get a little sitting and packing it there till the plug just finish it off and so they have their own crazies in fact and these are ordinary blue pigeons they live in the streets parts and city squares love pigeons there are big friends the pigeon was almost officially nominated as a symbol of friendship of people's after the festival of the youth and students in the USSR pigeon breeding became a USSR wide matter the Central Committee decided these birds will revive the cityscape and serve as Pickers eating thrown food residues in 20 years when the population of pigeons exceeded two million individuals it turned out that the symbol of friendship is not so friendly to the city pigeons not only contaminate buildings and monuments but also destroy them pecking out seeds carried by the wind from micro-cracks furthermore more than 62 ZJ more than 60 different diseases more than 60 different disease agents were found in poo of these pickers bird lovers sometimes suddenly has a fever a cough is it a cold but the doctor suspects psittacosis a disease spreads from the bird's City pigeons carry many mites bird lights and small please if these fleas come to our apartment then we will inch if these mites fly to our apartment then perhaps these mites will be on our pets and if the bird lice fly into our apartment you seem to experience the following sensation in the pillow for example pillows can be eaten after a certain amount of time [Music] we're conduction and clinical diagnosis of the pigeon now this is a primary inspection of any bird in this case we are conducting thermometry it's quite a routine test if the body temperature is reduced so we are more likely to say that this pigeon has an infection the fact is the overcrowding contributes to the fastest infection movement from each other because when any infection goes from one organism to another it repass abates and increases its pathogenic properties this is the law of the microbes so to say the law of the virus and so on today even children no street pigeons should not be touched with bare hands no one monitors the pigeons population and does not control the emergence of epidemics in Moscow this clinical examination was conducted in a private veterinary clinic especially at our request medical insurance is a luxury for ordinary street pigeons they cannot afford considering their number this is how its checked for an infection I take a washing of mucus crop then you carry it into a sterile test-tube and you can bring it to the laboratory in this form that's all the bird goes to quarantine then and the sample is already cultivated by laboratory methods a dozen of birds deadly malignant bacteria and infections will be later found in those samples [Music] but most bird diseases are absolutely safe for humans therefore as a rule citizens rarely worry about the health status of their feathered neighbors if you walk through the city and some pigeon is running near you it does not mean you will be infected from it there is a chance that a dangerous infection for you is there but it is not transmitted through airborne droplets there must be predisposing factors for this close contact with the bird we are humans we have a different organism and we are preferred by slightly different journals there are many other dangers for birds in concrete jungles besides mass infections high voltage wires toxic waste pigeon is provincial in a noisy metropolis is doomed to a fast death the main enemy of birds is modern architecture strangely enough this is the problem of the glass building now the glass is so it's smooth and tinted as if there is a continuation of bulging and the bird does not understand that glass is in front of holy and they often hit it and fall it's just sometimes a hundred of them are lying down the participant of our experiment Pele learned to avoid all these cities obstructions long ago the city is a natural habitat for him as a native of Moscow both our competitors are only on the approaches to the capital a little over an hour as best is the race started the average speed of the racer on the highway is one and a half times faster than that of the pigeon but the lack of hairpin turns on the rump do its job [Music] now Pele is nine miles closer to the finish however the pigeon suddenly begins to change flight trajectory near Domodedovo Airport well pigeons can change the trajectory as it can see a predator can sense some special bird scaring systems can sense a plane [Music] [Applause] [Music] Moscow International Airport DiMaggio the largest aviation hub of the capital a few thousand aircraft land and takeoff here every day and according to safety requirements only planes can fly in this guy and strangely enough Birds monitor compliance with this simple rule too not the yesterday this is a goshawk we've got one of the five that we have on the staff here he wants to eat it and doesn't really like to be here the GAO Sox name is Silva the one who did not like our film crew it has been guarding the Capitol sky for five years already its owner an employee in the so called ornithological airport service there is one in every major airport of our planet because even a small bird is a great threat for any aircraft it has minimal burden the size of pigeon can damage an airframe who break the blades and disabling and generate gets inside it's gonna be done by one pigeon it's more damage something like this has already happened when the plane made a flock of branch make an emergency landing and water to avoid such emergency landings the airport is surrounded by a complex system that keep uninvited guests out of here for example a noise propane gun that launches a festive volley every few minutes like a gunshot near the gun is set another device as a rule like an ordinary loudspeaker that transmits the same audio signals the whole day every bird species has its own warning signals and these settings are constantly transmitting a certain time program constantly changes so that usually birds that we use the birds afraid he might hurt him said in the performer show up he snuck in Scott don't [Music] Silva's orderly flights rarely and in violence this is a public order officer as a rule gives an oral or rather visual warning its main weapon is fear well for any crow or pigeon to be scared to death is enough to see a predator and leave there's no fly zone Rajon sense a predator or they don't feel it instinctively they sense it with their eyes if they see it they feel like if the pigeon does not see a predator he does not feel it they do not have a connection a birds vision is very different from a human one despite the fact that first themselves have smaller eyes they see more and better their tiny brain manages to process almost three times more in comparison with human visual information these loving pigeons their eyes are in a slightly different position in the land or in the lateral position so that they can capture more objects you guys win a pigeon flies it must look not only forward and down but it must also look it up so that some predatory bird can't catch it therefore the bird resolves these adaptive issues quite successfully [Music] humans can also see the world through the eyes of a bird thanks to modern technology however when I'm assembling the camera now and will film a quarter the 360 videos video that is a panoramic spherical video technology technology of photography has existed there a long time while shooting video technology has just to be honest but some insidious man what's interesting this is a new thing for annoyed but some animals priority see this way you would like overview around themselves Laura what crooks see be the camera that shoots such a video does not exist on the market too so experts must do everything manually [Music] we took a GoPro and printed a small birds eye on a 3d printer holding the GoPro in a certain manner support rather to eyes placed on opposite sides of the head having very large viewing angles let's say they cover each other it means the brain sticks together a picture of two very wide angle lenses and this results in a 360 degrees we have here six cameras here five around a circle that's enough to cover the corners four cameras are not enough and the six camera shoots upwards so our camera is ready we'll shoot a brief video on an ordinary Moscow Street with it we've connected a complex stabilization system to our homemade camera to make the video as close as possible to the picture that pigeon see with their eyes it compensates handshaking while the cameraman moves around and the image will be smooth [Music] it was the feeling process is over the most intense at work is still to come separated video shot by six cameras must be separately so sweet we'll get one single video file in the end the viewing angle of which is 360 to 180 degrees it is full scope while the specialists are engaged in video processing we'll get back to dome again of an airport according to the schedule Silva has another operational flight however our fearsome predator flatly refused to get up in the sky in the face of video cameras ornithologists had to take the car for duty territory bypass she's around unfamiliar people now and that's already an extraordinary situation we train the birds to a dam now to Technology people in our work she practically doesn't meet people so this is for her she's more interested in people than hunting now well maybe this is not so much interesting as alarming because she's whistling so it means she's afraid as a matter of fact birds are always hard to dray these animals born to fly are to freedom-loving and rarely do something against their own will for example Silva flew away three times from her owner in search of a better life and found out in practice that such comfortable conditions receiving food three times a day and a warm aviary she will never have on the outside so this is a mutually beneficial partnership and while some birds watching over a V Asian safety in exchange for food and care and others perform on stage [Music] [Applause] [Music] with some pigeons get used to humans very quickly in general takes a couple of months you carry it in your hands shoulder always talk to it boys the training will begin sub would she short trainings should be run every day so that the birds do not become strange to a human but the learning process itself does not take a lot of time the range of pigeons tricks is not full and wide enough that's why trainers always add and robotic and gymnastic elements to the act and the actions of the birds themselves are mainly based on the so called instinctive that is unconditional reflexes it is in his nature as you can see just like in principle hand to hand you see who is moving from hand to hand the most difficult thing that is why [Music] the main training stance is that his birds do not fly to the auditorium during the night the only difference between trained pigeons and their wild consonants is that they fly only when human needs it and along the fix trajectory and no natural instincts or traditional training methods will help my powerful conditional reflex is learned in the process of training I have the string that I put on the pigeons leg it's a soft piece of string and now I release a pigeon and it's hurting it yes but you very quickly realizes that it hurts and immediately flies back and you might see flies and the string slows him down it hurts to keep flying and he comes back thanks to this conditioned reflex but I try to use it very rarely only for flight so that pigeon could land upon a human only also he's trained only to human [Music] [Applause] by the way there is also an instinct in pigeons unique skill of always returning home but a more powerful one the reproductive instinct against the established expression fly on the wings of love participant of our experiment Haley is not an exception he fell in love - if he was born in this place if he felt the love he likes this place to nest to the female to his baby pigeons he will strive by feelings of their wards are just motivation for professional pigeon breeders now I choose the motivation for this pigeon associated with his baby birds he will strive very hard probably to his nest and to his baby and tiny low these are three day old baby pigeons pigeons for feedings that meet strives to this time and it is really worried by the way our rider is also eager to win it is almost impossible to define the leader at this time the fact is that delay was in such a hurry to this sweetheart that he disabled our radio beacon and damaged the camera a sport vision accelerates to 111 miles per hour if there is a favorable wind and if we finally found out the reason for such a hurry there is no answer to the question yet of how exactly a pigeon finds his way home not yet so first things first these unique pigeon skills were found out in ancient Greece names of the first Olympic champions were spread throughout the country with the help of these birds the pigeon host was one of the main means of communication until the invention of the Telegraph it was actively used by journalists politicians commodity brokers by the way an appearance of one of the richest dynasties of our time is attributed to postal pigeon in 1815 the German Nathan Mayer von Rothschild received a pigeon message with a report on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo it made possible to conduct a successful campaign with French securities by a novice businessman but even after the emergence of the Telegraph the pigeon post has not completely disappeared it continued to be actively used for military purposes there were special companies of pigeon communications at the frontline at the time of the first and second world wars only after the emergence of reliable walkie-talkies and phones were feathered fighters assigned to the reserve forever and renamed messenger pigeons and the sports agent [Music] [Applause] they do not care where they go and in what direction the owners Haven it's locked in cages and are waiting for the birds return the first competitions of sports pigeons were held in the middle of the last century participants were driven by car or by train for several hundred or even thousands of kilometres from their home and released all at the same time get ready guys go Marshall took off the competition star sees every second counts as a second initially owners attention is intensified the conditions of these competitions changed only a little and the schedule of the pages breeders themselves remain the same - getting up at 6 a.m. the pigeon house were still polenta mountain fly while you're cleaning bran fed give water closed and went to work and the same in the evening Andre Soto has bred pigeons from early childhood he started with a small pigeon in the Attic of a typical whose schalke today he's a successful businessman and he built a simpler two story house for his beloved pets next to his three-story cottage this pigeons house is state-of-the-art a champion cannot be raised without modern technology there is its own flight opposite each section that's where the pigeons fly after the competition or from training there is an antenna on each flight board which is connected to the computer like cable when a pigeon sits on this antenna it is fixed in the computer the time of its arrival by which we can calculate the speed then that's directly the cable they are connected to this computer by which we switch training will go late pigeons out and we'll see when they have flown back and where their speed will be recorded [Music] first trainings are conducted in the spring after the winter period because pigeons are not let out of the winter as a predator does not rest that's when in principle pigeons are over the wing for three weeks they begin to be trained so that they understand what they want the first training is usually twelve miles then we go to thirty in the last one for sixty miles well here we are in our starting [Music] where are we going to let our pigeons out now well here we take any pigeon [Music] we look at its family ring well it will be recorded on the computer through this purple ring when he sits on the antenna that he is on a flight board I open it it circles over the place for takeoff and blocks Liu straight to the house he took birds no more than a minute to define the right direction nobody knows yet it's a secret it's unclear how a pigeon finds its way home either by the magnetic wheel or by the Sun but it flies in cloudy weather that is when there is no Sun there are pigeons that flew we had cases that flew when it was already dark at 11 p.m. in the evening and at 12 a.m. when it's dark pigeons flew back from the competition this theme is created in several hypotheses some scientists believe that pigeons orientate themselves by Sun in the daytime and by the Stars at night during flights others are sure that the birds are very good at remembering the area there is also an opinion that the birds have excellent smell and find their way home by smell but those are not the most popular versions most scientists believe that every time choosing the direction pigeons consult their inner compass they can somehow sense the magnetic wave of our planet that does not let them lose their way and this has already been confirmed experimentally a baby pigeon not yet developed well it is in the same position inside the egg that's it turns out it as a compass needle well always points north with its art its legs are in the East well-spoken well and his head is in the West cookies whenever the egg is rotated a baby pigeon with the skill of sensing a magnetic impulse of the earth it moves inside this egg however many experts believe that pigeons navigation system is a set of tools both smell and sensitivity to magnetic waves are involved here and of course phenomenally sharp eyesight we made a special camera that films in 360 degrees format to understand how birds see the world around them we mean we can get closer to the vision of a bird or any other animal a Ibuki feeling bold not predatory whoa just as a very large field of vision but for angle so let's start with the human eyes I start the video something we can try the field of view the bird sees in the same example hood it will look something like this different birds are likely to see with different angles vomiting you the brain must be able to process everything that it sees around immediately by the way it's not difficult you start to take this video at face value after working with it in about 30 to 40 minutes [Music] [Applause] our training of sports pigeons ended with a complete failure when the competitors got home they saw strangers near their pigeons house is our film crew that expected to film the landing process in a striking way but just scared the pigeons as a result in the end we had to wait for the owner of the pigeon house even from a bird's-eye view he was recognized almost immediately however we didn't manage to get the exact flight time results because the counter stopped only when all the pigeons touched the receiving antenna by their legs where's the pigeons field where is the owner and where is it you will go into the pigeons house now they will rush to the walls now if I come here they will just walk they are so much smarter than we think we should respect them and then everything will be all right competitions of sports pigeons in our country are held several times a season the principle is the same as 50 years ago but rarely do more than 1000 individuals participate in such competitions the sport is much better developed in Europe a race with the participation of 50,000 pigeons from all over Europe is held every year in Barcelona and this is always mass starting the sport ones are selected genetically that is the best is mated with the best they must transfer at the genetic level what is biologically programmed one of the most expensive pigeons bought at an auction in Germany cost 140 thousand euros the pigeon one in Barcelona fifty thousand pigeons and so much money was paid for I have a grand nice of this pigeon but you will never which go however sport birds are just one of the sections of pigeon breeding today in Moscow only several hundred people are breeding these birds although most of them were born in the USSR [Music] what was involved in it since my child well the senses remain here's a chance and now I'm here yours you come around them in they fly up fly high and it's such a pride that it's your bird back to you it feels I'm so proud strangely enough pigeon breeders themselves don't really like the wild city pigeons blue rock pigeons infect expensive pens with deadly diseases the latest hard Barney so the other as they say he's a former hunter well I feel bad about doing it myself is nearly over [Music] [Music] [Music] and as it turned out the vision is ahead of his rival by about 40 minutes now gathered after they did the distance of 120 miles just [Music] I did not expect the pigeon would win over an experienced motorcyclist as a cliff Lee speaking I was pleased that the pigeon passed him Oh still it would be great if his navigation systems didn't fail him two pages were called special and unique throughout the centuries and it is so take cover thousands of kilometers for their family and find their way home kindness and the symbol of the Holy Spirit these names several thousand years old with wings appeared only recently and it's humans fall if the city is kept quite clean for example so that there is no waste anywhere there will be fewer birds we need to face the facts in fact I haven't seen any actual cases of diseases from street pigeons for I don't know how long I've monitored this situation [Music] these birds have lived near humans for five thousand years but we know practically nothing about these amazing creatures until now but one thing's for sure we humans have something to learn from them religion is a very loyal and faithful bird they are devoted to each other as well as to the human that's probably a very strong tonic huge a remedy that makes you calm yes in today's turbulent world in the city well it's just well you would love I guess probably for a bird an interesting fact Pablo Picasso the author of the famous dove he never considered it a symbol of peace and kindness the artist owes his hallmark to his friend the novelist Louise Aragon it was he who suggested to do this pencil sketch as an emblem of the world DS Congress Picasso called pigeons cruel creatures that would do anything for food for the rest of his life however he always kept the small pigeon house next to his workshop he was an avid pigeon lover himself the great artist knew for sure that there are things in our world that can't be explained with science or expressed with words [Music] [Music]

Channel: Science

Views: 20,433

Rating: 4.6412554 out of 5

Keywords: urban wildlife, urban wildlife documentary, pigeon, pigeons, pigeons documentary, city pigeons, city birds, birds, homing pigeon, dove, pigeon or dove, emblem of the World Congress, Peace Supporters, pigeon videos, wildlife, live in attics, eat out of a dumpster, pigeons infections, birds documentary, national geographic животные, pigeons and humans, carrier pigeon, pigeon navigation system, rat with wings, white pigeons, breeding pigeons, national geographic

Id: 13m1Gsu6JRA

Length: 43min 29sec (2609 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020