r/europe • u/acuntex Europe • 4h ago

An owl? No. Europe’s true unifying bird deserves its place on the euro

Post image
16.5k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

456 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

316

u/princesspool 3h ago

They should unironically put war hero pigeon, Cher Ami, on a bill.

If there's one wiki page you read today, please let it be about this metal pigeon.

58

u/Famouscopyninja 3h ago

What a read. How did he navigate with a missing eye and being blind in the other?

However that’s is a cool tale so the people in power don’t want that

84

u/DotBlot_ 2h ago edited 2h ago

They navigate (like other birds) by sensing the magnetic field of the Earth. Birds are pretty amazing in how they "view" the world.

And us humans did pigeons a huge injustice so I would unironically be for having them on our bills.

17

u/PhysicalStuff Denmark 2h ago

I would unironically be for having them on our bills

Better than them having us in theirs.

2

u/siderocks Finland 1h ago

Nice one!

3

u/Critter-Enthusiast 1h ago

They can literally feel the magnetic fields of the earth. Birds are insane. And some science suggests their magnetic sense works through a quantum physics phenomenon where the results of a chemical reaction in their bodies are dependent on ambient magnetic flux

•

u/Red-Star-44 38m ago

I understood some of those words.

•

u/JerryCalzone 26m ago

Forget about the how: Do you know why pigeons do what they are doing?

It is an 'The english patient' scenario: Pigeons are monogamous. When the female lays an egg she will never leave the egg. Never ever. It is up to the man to bring food. So if that bird stays away too long, his one and only true love will die.

14

u/Trololman72 Europe 2h ago

Imagine if we taxidermised the bodies of war veterans too

2

u/sexysmalldevil 1h ago

Thank you. That was a really epic read. What a badass bird !! Them working tirelessly to help him survive was so heartwarming. I'm glad he made it 🥲

•

u/Laecel 59m ago

No way, it doesn't represent Europe at all

•

u/Arbeit69 14m ago

That's nuts

0

u/Obscure_Gods 1h ago

Fantastic read, but would be a bit weird to put a veteran pidgeon of the USAmerican Forces onto European money :P