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Hilarious moment King's Guard demands pigeons move from Buckingham Palace

<p>The King's Guard have left royal fans in stitches after a hilarious interaction between two guards and two pesky pigeons has gone viral.</p> <p>The exchange took place outside Buckingham Palace, as the Guards marched out of the gates with a briefcase in hand, holding their signature stern looks. </p> <p>As the Guards progressed, a pair of pigeons stopped in front of them on the pavement, prompting the Guards to bellow "make way" at the birds. </p> <p>Their booming voices startled the birds as they flew away, as the Guards continued down the pavement. </p> <p>The unusual interaction was captured on video and posted to TikTok, where it gained thousands of likes and comments, with many remarking how hilarious it was. </p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5BwYdaIxPS/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5BwYdaIxPS/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by about.london (@about.ldn)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>Many were quick to comment on the hilarity of dutiful soldiers yelling at birds with such authority, while another person commented, "How do pigeons behave better than tourists? Incredible."</p> <p>Despite many considering them tourist attractions, the King's Guard consist of elite serving soldiers who are tasked with protecting the monarch's life and properties. </p> <p>The King's Guard are generally not allowed to interact with the public, and have been known to be very vocally aggressive if they get too close or present their bayonets if they become persistent. </p> <p>The soldiers must not let anything distract them from their duties - with toilet breaks banned during two hour shifts - and will march through anyone, or apparently any bird, that gets in their way. </p> <p><em>Image credits: TikTok</em></p>

International Travel

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How do pigeons find their way home? We looked in their ears with a diamond-based quantum microscope to find out

<p>Homing pigeons are known for their uncanny ability to find their way home – navigating complex and changing landscapes. In fact, they do this so well they were used as a source of secure communication more than 2,000 years ago.</p> <p>Julius Caesar <a href="https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2017/11/not-just-birds">reportedly sent</a> news of his conquest of Gaul back to Rome via pigeons, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/255b75e0-c77d-11e2-be27-00144feab7de">as did Napoleon Bonaparte</a> following his defeat by England in the 1815 Battle of Waterloo.</p> <p>We know pigeons use visual cues and can navigate based on landmarks along known travel routes. We also know they have a magnetic sense called “magnetoreception” which lets them navigate using Earth’s magnetic field.</p> <p>But we don’t know exactly <em>how</em> they (and other species) do this. In <a href="https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2112749118">research</a> published today in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, my colleagues and I tested a theory that attempts to link magnetoreception in homing pigeons with tiny lumps of iron-rich material found in their inner ears.</p> <p>By using a new kind of magnetic microscope, we confirmed this isn’t the case. But the technology has opened the door for us to investigate the phenomenon in several other species.</p> <h2>The current hypotheses</h2> <p>Scientists have spent decades exploring the possible mechanisms for magnetoreception. There are currently two mainstream theories.</p> <p>The first is a vision-based “free-radical pair” model. Homing pigeons and other migratory birds have proteins in the retina of their eyes called “cryptochromes”. These produce an electrical signal that <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03618-9">varies depending on the strength</a> of the local magnetic field.</p> <p>This could potentially allow the birds to “see” Earth’s magnetic field, although scientists have yet to confirm this theory.</p> <p>The second proposal for how homing pigeons navigate is based on lumps of magnetic material inside them, which may provide them with a magnetic particle-based directional compass.</p> <p>We know magnetic particles are found in nature, in a group of bacteria called <a href="https://theconversation.com/magnetic-bacteria-and-their-unique-superpower-attract-researchers-100720">magnetotactic bacteria</a>. These bacteria produce magnetic particles and orient themselves along the Earth’s magnetic field lines.</p> <p>Scientists are now looking for magnetic particles in a range of species. Potential candidates <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-007-0236-0">were found</a> in the upper beak of homing pigeons more than a decade ago, but <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11046">subsequent work</a> indicated these particles were related to iron storage and not magnetic sensing.</p> <h2>A peek inside a pigeon’s ear</h2> <p>The new search is now underway in the inner ear of pigeons, where iron particles known as “cuticulosomes” <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982213004338">were first identified</a> in 2013.</p> <p>Single cuticulosomes have been located within distinct regions in the pigeon inner ear where other known sensory systems exist (such as for hearing and balancing during flight). In theory, if there were a magnetic sensing system in pigeons, it should be located close to other sensory systems.</p> <p>But to determine whether iron cuticulosomes can act as magnetoreceptors in pigeons, scientists need to determine their magnetic properties. This is no mean feat, since cuticulosomes are 1,000 times smaller than a grain of sand.</p> <p>What’s more is they are only found in 30% of the hair cells within the inner ear, making them difficult to identify and characterise.</p> <p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431870/original/file-20211115-6434-uzv76r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431870/original/file-20211115-6434-uzv76r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="Diagram showing a homing pigeon's inner ear, with labels for hair cells and magnetic particles." /></a> <span class="caption">We conducted quantum magnetic imaging of iron-organelles in the pigeon inner ear.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert W de Gille</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></p> <p>To tackle this problem our group at the University of Melbourne, together with colleagues from Vienna’s Institute of Molecular Pathology and the Max Planck Society in Bonn, turned to a new imaging technology to explore the magnetic properties of iron cuticulosomes in the pigeon inner ear.</p> <p>We developed a magnetic microscope that uses diamond-based sensors to visualise delicate magnetic fields emanating from tiny magnetic particles.</p> <h2>Disproving the theory</h2> <p>We carefully studied thin sections of the pigeon inner ear placed directly onto the diamond sensors. By applying magnetic fields of varying strengths to the tissue, we were able to gauge the magnetic susceptibility of single cuticulosomes.</p> <p>Our results showed the magnetic properties of the cuticulosomes were not strong enough for them to act as a magnetic particle-based magnetoreceptor. In fact, the particles would need to be 100,000 times stronger to activate the sensory pathways required for magnetoreception in pigeons.</p> <p>However, despite the search for the elusive magnetoreceptor coming up short, we are extremely excited by the potential of this magnetic microscope technology.</p> <p>We hope to use it study a host of magnetic candidates across a variety of species including rodents, fish and turtles. And by doing so we can focus not only on cuticulosomes, but a range of other potentially magnetic particles.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171738/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-simpson-1289933">David Simpson</a>, School of Physics, Senior Lecturer, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/the-university-of-melbourne-722">The University of Melbourne</a></em></span></p> <p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-pigeons-find-their-way-home-we-looked-in-their-ears-with-a-diamond-based-quantum-microscope-to-find-out-171738">original article</a>.</p> <p><em>Image: Shutterstock</em></p>

Family & Pets

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Woman spends over $700 a month feeding and CLOTHING rescue pigeons

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">23-year-old Lincolnshire, UK, resident Meggy Johnson rescued her beloved pigeons Sky and Moose when they were chicks (also known as squabs), and has given them a life few pigeons dare to dream of.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Johnson found each pigeon after it had been abandoned, and hand-fed them with a tube around the clock for six weeks, caring for them until they became as tame as any other pet. She found Sky in September 2019, when a workman brought the chick to her pet supply store in a plastic bag. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><img style="width: 498.7593052109181px; height: 500px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844150/241734627_2854750591443745_4861876269133303799_n.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/5cc821e4d2e2429d8cbb496825100aa9" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“A gentleman came into my shop swinging a Tesco carrier bag around with Sky in and said ‘I’ve brought you a pigeon’,” Meggy told </span><a href="https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/13/woman-spends-4000-a-year-on-fashionista-pet-pigeons-15249463/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Metro.co.uk</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. “It’s funny to look back now, and she’s nicknamed ‘Carrier Bag’ because of it. I said, ‘Be careful if you’ve got a baby pigeon in there!’ She was only two weeks old at the time and so small. She had to be hand-fed around round the clock like a mummy pigeon would do.” </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Meanwhile, Moose came into her care in May of this year, when someone called to let her know a one-eyed baby bird had been born. “He was born with a gentleman in Middlesbrough who contacted me and I said, ‘Yes please, I’d love to rescue him and give him a chance.”</span></p> <p><img style="width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844143/124102563_2639594969625976_2117161696564980499_n.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/ecbead2fc5634c7c8e2fb7f8bfd464d7" /></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Now both pigeons are fully grown, and completely spoiled. Johnson estimates that she spends as much as $755 a month on the birds, adding up to over $7500 a year. This includes typical pet supplies, plus extra creature comforts like teepees and teddies, as well as an extensive wardrobe of 17 outfits that cost around $50 each.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The outfits aren’t just a fashion statement – they’re also practical. “They do look super cool, but the outfits are also really practical because they catch their poo and help keep the house clean. You can also attach a little flight leash to take them into the garden for some fresh air – Sky likes to sit on my shoulder and sunbathe, and she’s never even attempted to fly off.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><img style="width: 374.9379652605459px; height: 500px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844144/148904057_2708219529430186_2290819989056113107_n.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/ec524e9fc9804446a1633a117deed47e" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Johnson also cares for two other birds – Clee the pigeon and Snowy the domesticated dove – but unlike Sky and Moose, who occupy a room in Johnson’s home, they live in her pet supply store. Both birds are disabled and cannot fly, so they wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Johnson rescued Clee in April when a member of the public found him wedged between a wall of their home and their garage, and Snowy was added to the brood after being found in a hospital car park in October 2020.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><img style="width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844147/200534816_2791671084418363_7725484971032862860_n.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/124a1c52ae2c471e9bb3f436faa96565" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wild pigeons usually only live for two years, but domesticated birds can live for up to 15 years, so Johnson expects her birds to live long and comfortable lives under her care. Johnson said that while some people have said rude things about the birds, most are surprised to see how friendly and smart they are. She hopes to change the negative attitudes people have towards pigeons, and help show people that they’re clever, sweet animals.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Some people say, ‘Ew pigeon’ and call them ‘flying rats’, which is something as a pigeon-lover that really upsets me, but most people are more open-minded. The bond that you can get with them is amazing – Clee comes running to his name and follows you like a dog. They make the best pets, they’re so funny. When you hand feed them they get so trusting. You can sit with them, and they’ll come and jump on you and sit on your shoulder.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“They’re very special little birds.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Images: Meggy Johnson/Facebook</span></p>

Family & Pets

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Cheeky pigeon gets free ride (and lunch) on the tube

<p>There’s no such thing as a free lunch – unless you’re the persistent pigeon in this video that amazingly turned a free ride on the central London tube into a free meal as well.</p> <p>The woman in the video looks less than impressed as the bird interrupts her commute, flying onto her bag in a desperate attempt to get a bite of her chocolate bar.</p> <p>But instead of shoo-ing it away, the pair reconcile their differences and before too long they’re thick as thieves, the woman feeding the bird before she alights.</p> <p>Check the amazing interaction out in the video above. We’re not too sure we’d be quite keen to let a pigeon get up close and personal with us, but hey that’s just us.</p> <p>What do you think of the video?</p> <p><em>Credit: Facebook/Soni Fenton-Scott via Storyful</em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="https://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2017/01/anne-marr-on-the-rescue-cat-that-changed-her-life/">My rescue cat changed my life</a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="https://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2017/01/pawtraits-of-dogs/">Adorable “pawtraits” of man’s best friend</a></em></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><em><a href="https://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2017/01/why-dogs-get-bored-with-their-toys/">Why dogs get bored with their toys</a></em></strong></span></p>

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