Click here if you're interested in either PIGEONS IN VESTS or air pollution!

[RowanMumsnet]

Ever seen a pigeon pecking away at a chip bag on the pavement and thought, "there's so much more you could be doing with your talents, Mr Pigeon?" You're not alone. Plume Labs and DigitasLBi are using pigeons to tackle air pollution.

The Pigeon Air Patrol is a flock of ten pigeons equipped with pollution-monitoring backpacks anchored by tiny vests - allowing real-time analysis of the air quality.

All this week in London, you can tweet your location to @PigeonAir and get an instant reply from the pigeons, telling you about the air pollution levels where you are. Handy if you or your DC suffer with asthma or any other respiratory conditions, or if you're just concerned about air pollution levels.

The pigeons will only be in London. Apologies to non-Londoners: please instead enjoy these picture of the pigeons looking fetching in their vests.

But if you are in London and you fancy having a pigeon tweet you with your local air quality readings this may not be an entirely accurate description of what happens please get on and tweet your local area (e.g. Hampstead, Brixton, Hackney) to @PigeonAir and let us know what happens.

NB these are homing pigeons, lovingly cosseted by top pigeon-fanciers, and a vet has been involved at all stages of the project.

Love
MNHQ xx

Edit: We've amended the Twitter handle. The correct one is @PigeonAir but previously we used @PigeonPatrol

Thanks,
MNHQ

There's not any fancy pigeons is there?

I could answer that for you Robin or try to

We use something similar at our wildlife hospital when a bird might have a severe open wound on its abdomen or damaged wing etc; a tight wrap bandage or compression tube helps avoid further damage while the injury heals. We only use them on severe cases as they do restrict the bird's movement quite a bit and can so make them uncomfortable or prone to stress.

That being sad, I don't know if I can throw my pigeon-loving support behind this. They may indeed have a vet supervising but in my experience most vets aren't particularly used to pigeon care and tend to do more primary care rather than specialising. If the analysis is available all the time it sounds like the pigeons will be wearing the vests all day.

Have they looked into any musculoskeletal effects i.e strain or injury to wings or back, deformed growth over time etc. The backpacks may be an insignificant weight to us but pigeons weigh a couple hundred grams at most, so any extra weight is like us carrying around a hiking pack all day. The straps could restrict or alter normal wing movement, and could also snag on branches, deterrent prongs or anything of a similar shape and cause the bird to get stuck.

Fuck, that should be Rowan, obviously. You can tell I write multiple texts about robins.

OMG. Zombie was being eyed up by a pigeon late this afternoon. It was playing peek-a-boo with her through the lounge window.

Well, Zombie thought it was playing peek-a-boo. It was actually planning her abduction, death and how best to cook her wasn't it.

I'd just like to point out that pigeons have a history for helping humans sort out our fuck ups.
More than half the recpients of the Dickin Medal for animal bravery have been pigeons.
www.forces-war-records.co.uk/the-dickin-medal

And here's a duck in a hat.

And here's a parrot in a hoodie.

And here are 2 penguins in tank tops.

I tried Googling, Rowan - nothing.

A Zombie scared of pigeons? Now that's funny!

@HanarCantWearSweaters

I could answer that for you Robin or try to

We use something similar at our wildlife hospital when a bird might have a severe open wound on its abdomen or damaged wing etc; a tight wrap bandage or compression tube helps avoid further damage while the injury heals. We only use them on severe cases as they do restrict the bird's movement quite a bit and can so make them uncomfortable or prone to stress.

That being sad, I don't know if I can throw my pigeon-loving support behind this. They may indeed have a vet supervising but in my experience most vets aren't particularly used to pigeon care and tend to do more primary care rather than specialising. If the analysis is available all the time it sounds like the pigeons will be wearing the vests all day.

Have they looked into any musculoskeletal effects i.e strain or injury to wings or back, deformed growth over time etc. The backpacks may be an insignificant weight to us but pigeons weigh a couple hundred grams at most, so any extra weight is like us carrying around a hiking pack all day. The straps could restrict or alter normal wing movement, and could also snag on branches, deterrent prongs or anything of a similar shape and cause the bird to get stuck.

Yikes. We'll see if we can get more details for you on the pigeon care side

Thanks Rowan!

a video on how they look after their pigeons

Is a gimmick, but a clever one - and brilliantly timed after last weekend's smog soup.

Still not convinced about the backpacks having no effect but pleased to see its just a temporary campaign, I thought it was an introduction of a permanent program. Thanks for the video, log. Brian certainly seems to love his birds.

My own pigeon offering to everyone - imagine if this beast was soaring over your area (he'd need a very large backpack)

Are you sure that's not a chicken?

Actually the dodo was a relative of the pigeon. It's thought they evolved because of a plentiful good supply, and no predators so the became bigger and fatter and slowly lost the need/ability to fly.

Good? Food!

bloody phone

Backpacks with a gizmo in? Methinks the pigeons are off on a dinosaur adventure may have been watching too much cbeebies

Thanks Clarabel that's my earworm of the day: "Dinosaur Ad, Dinosaur Adventures!"

I am slightly obsessed by this.

Am following the pigeons on twitter even though a) I am about 300 miles away from London, and b) I suspect that the ten pigeons are just hanging out in Trafalgar Sq and totally making up the air quality tweets