Though everyone, in the urban areas, see them as a bunch of pests, a pigeon in Australia surprised everyone with her ingenuity, after creating a nest out of poppies.
The flowers from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra have been taken by a pigeon. The smart bird, ironically, used the flowers to avoid being harmed by the pigeon wire put on the window sill where she made her nest. Given the significant role pigeons played in modern history (particularly during WWI and WWII) and the significance of poppies, many have seen the outstanding work as far from random (a symbol of endurance for the soldiers).
It took a while, until the staff at the War Memorial figured out, where all the poppies are disappearing. Initially, they had no idea what’s going on with all the flowers on the Unknown Soldier’s Monument, but the innocent thief was soon to be found, when someone spotted lots of poppies next to a glass window. Moments later, the culprit showed on, carrying another (stolen)flower in her beak. Needless to say that everyone was glad to know the poppies’ thief was actually a pigeon.
Whether by chance or design, the stained glass window in which the lovely nest was made depicts the ‘wounded soldier.’ This pigeon seemed to want to “remind everyone of the profound link that exists on the battlefield between man and beast.”
“The most successful means of delivering messages up and across was with pigeons,” historian Dr. Meleah Hampton stated. “They [pigeons] are particularly useful in combat when you have a couple of soldiers attempting to send a message back to the backline from where they are; a pigeon can occasionally get that through when nothing else can.”
Even during the WWII, pigeons still played a massive role in communication. As a proof, 32 pigeons was honored with the PDSA Dickin Medal – a distinction given to trained animals for their devotion on duty. One of the most famous pigeons during that time was ‘White Vision.’ The heroic bird has managed “to a message under exceptionally difficult conditions and so contributing to the rescue of an aircrew while serving with the RAF in October 1943”.
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