History Main / InstantMessengerPigeon

** However, since SD cards and the like can store a lot of data in a very small physical size, pigeons could carry the whole of the data faster than the Internet (as in, with actual wires) can.

* Perhaps referenced, intentionally or not, by the IM client formerly known as gAIM, now [[http://www.pidgin.im Pidgin]]. The name is both a reference to this trope (their client logo is in fact a purple pigeon) and the linguistics term "pidgin"; is a proto-language consisting of mixed vocabulary and grammar from multiple languages used in the same place/time. As a name for an IM client capable of connecting simultaneously to multiple IM protocols, it makes perfect sense.

** The Order of the Phoenix, not trusting the security of owl post in wartime, used the Patronus charm to dispatch super-secure messages to one another.

* Spoofed in [[http://www.explosm.net/comics/1391/ this]] ''CyanideAndHappiness'' comic.

* ''Series/AlloAllo'' used a "long-distance duck". Of course, it's dubious as to whether the duck even made it out of the city.

* Averted to some extent in RobertJordan's ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''. Few details are given, but messenger birds do seem to get eaten or intercepted on a regular basis.

* Several {{Worms}} games have an exploding pigeon as a homing missile that's slightly prone to exploding on any unfortunately-placed terrain.

* Averted in James Clavell's AsianSaga novel ''Shōgun'': ''Daimyo'' will send several pigeons at once to ensure that a message gets through, and rival ''daimyo'' will try to intercept them with archers or specially-trained hawks.

* The ''Dinotopia'' miniseries (and the books it was based on) features small dino-parrots which memorize verbal messages to be sent to others on the island. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as the Messenger Bird in the miniseries are clearly sapient, and the Dimorphodon in the books probably are too.

* Well averted in Stephen Donaldson's novel,"The Mirror of her Dreams", wherein Terisa Morgan, the protagonist from Earth, desperately lectures her Fantasy World interrogator on the limitations of Earth homing pigeons (one-way communication, not two-way); he's never heard of them and suspects her of using pigeons to pass messages, even though SHE alerted HIM to the method. Unfortunately, the only person around who could corroborate this is the Big Bad (who did, indeed, get the idea and the pigeons from Earth, but is unlikely to speak up for her).

* In the Assassin's Creed series, this is played pretty straight, as Al-Mualim sends pigeons to the various assassin bureaus (which is also where the feathers come from), and Ezio receives messages from these as plot points and for side missions in an area.

* Averted in ''Buddha'', where Naradatta convinces Tatta to possess an animal in a desperate attempt to contact his mentor, Asita. In between third party interceptions, exhaustion, and being attacked by predators, Tatta possesses several animals and ends up killing nearly all of them. When Asita finally gets the message, his first reaction is to severely punish Naradatta for being so reckless with the lives of animals.

* The Wizard Derk, in ''DarkLordOfDerkholm'' and ''Year of the Griffin'' by Creator/DianaWynneJones, breeds very clever pigeons, who are smart enough to know where people are, and very devoted to getting there.
* Used rather straight, but [[JustifiedTrope justified]], in ''HellsGate'' by Creator/DavidWeber and LindaEvans. The messenger birds are super-fast, can be set to any destination, and are quite unlikely to be intercepted -- but they're not pigeons, they're giant humming birds enhanced by powerful magic to be perfect for their role. And they ''do'' move at finite speed, which is Arcana's major disadvantage against their opponents (who must make do with mundane technology instead magic, but do have telepaths).
* Used and justified in almost exactly the same form as above in the ''HeraldsOfValdemar'' books by Creator/MercedesLackey. Mages occasionally send hummingbird messengers; again, their speed and flexible addressing is chalked up to magical enhancement.

** Note that some thieves in ''The Colour Of Magic'' used a "homing rat" to send a message. It's unclear if this is a regular rat trained to track the recipient down by smell, a magic-enhanced rat as per above, or even some fantastical species of rodent, unique to the Disk, that shares pigeons' homing instincts.

* Probably [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in ''HarryPotter'', as the owls could very easily be [[AWizardDidIt enchanted or supernaturally bred]]. There have also been cases of mail being stolen.

* George R. R. Martin's ''ASongOfIceAndFire'' has ravens; though they can only reach established outposts like Riverrun or Castle Black, they're still uncannily quick and unerring about it. Martin has admitted the ravens are a product of RuleOfCool. (RealLife ravens are very smart birds, mind, but pigeons have them beat on directions.)

* Used rather straight, but [[JustifiedTrope justified]], in ''Hell's Gate'' by DavidWeber and LindaEvans. The messenger birds are super-fast, can be set to any destination, and are quite unlikely to be intercepted -- but they're not pigeons, they're giant humming birds enhanced by powerful magic to be perfect for their role. And they ''do'' move at finite speed, which is Arcana's major disadvantage against their opponents (who must make do with mundane technology instead magic, but do have telepaths).
* Used and justified in almost exactly the same form as above in the ''HeraldsOfValdemar'' books by MercedesLackey. Mages occasionally send hummingbird messengers; again, their speed and flexible addressing is chalked up to magical enhancement.

* DragonridersOfPern has the fire lizards, which are especially useful for this due to the fact that they can teleport.

* ''TheVentureBrothers'' utilized an aversion of this with a messenger butterfly. The Monarch tries to send a covert message to his henchmen while in prison on the wing of a butterfly, which is immediately intercepted and eaten by a one Mr. Tiny Eagle.

* Parodied in ''RobinHoodMenInTights''. When the Merry Men get some info in Nottingham, they wonder how to get it to Sherwood Forest. One of them then says, "We'll [[IncrediblyLamePun fox it to them]]!" Followed by them attaching the message to a fox, which oddly ran off making dolphin sounds.
* In ''TheGreatRace'' reporter Maggie [=DuBois=] uses homing pigeons to deliver her stories to the newspaper sponsoring the race. The pigeons return directly to the newspaper building, not their dovecots, and reach it almost immediately even though they're crossing most of the U.S. to get there.
* ''TopSecret''. The traitor [[spoiler:Nigel]] uses homing pigeons to send messages to the East German government. Played for laughs, as the pigeons are shown wearing aviator's helmets.

* ''TheVentureBrothers'' utilized an aversion of this with a messenger butterfly. The Monarch tries to send a covert message to his henchmen while in prison on the wing of a butterfly, which is immediately intercepted and eaten by a one Mr. Tiny Eagle.
* Yankee Doodle Pigeon was the redoubtable hero of ''DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines.''

* {{Asterix}} and the Vikings has a pigeon named Shortmessageservix. It even ''vibrates'' on landing as a cellphone would.

* One issue of ''Conan the Barbarian'' has a particularly horrendous example. A mole in Conan's army was sending messages by pigeons to her employer, the enemy. Conan outwits them because, as it turns out, he's had archers intercept and shoot down the pigeon, read the message, then put the message on another pigeon and send off so the enemy wouldn't suspect anything. Gee, good thing pigeons come with standardised directions these days, yeah?

** To put it into perspective, a single webpage ''could'' be loaded in one forth-and-back transmission (though that would require bad programming practice from the website, if it's got any styling or interactivity at all), as long as it doesn't have any image (even in the background) or any applet. Each image would take another forth-and-back transmission, and some applets quite a few. And if the size of a package happened to be more than the size of a message a pigeon can carry, that would mean yet another back transmission. So indeed, it's not feasible for the Internet.

** Subverted in ''PokemonGoldAndSilver''. A guy near Goldenrod City asks the PlayerCharacter to deliver a message to his friend near Violet City. He loans you a Spearow that [[YouHaveResearchedBreathing doesn't know Fly]], so it apparently can't deliver the message itself.

-->-- ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'', [[http://www.avatarspiritmedia.net/transcripts.php?ep=307 "The Runaway"]]

As useful as pigeon post proved to be during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, this method of communication possessed some considerable drawbacks: the homing pigeons' capacity to reliably deliver messages was entirely dependent upon their ability to locate their nest and mate. Thus, the pigeons had to first be transported from their nesting location to the senders' location (via slower-than-pigeon transit), and once released, the bird would fly straight to its home and not budge thereafter; for mutual conversation, both parties needed either several pigeons transported in the other's location to send home, or some means of retrieving them after sending a message.[[hottip:*:Sometimes a pigeon could be trained to go back and forth between two locations, one counting as "home" and the other being a major food source, but moving on.]] Homing pigeons were also prone to getting lost or eaten by predators during particularly difficult journeys, which necessitated sending the same message with several pigeons, some or all of which could fall into the hands of a third party. Indeed, the Germans even trained falcons to do specifically this during the aforementioned siege.

* In ''FinalFantasyVI'', it's implied that a pigeon could reach a brand-new, secret military base without much effort, and carrying silk bouquets from an obscure cave in the mountains and returning is downright overt.

* Played completely straight in ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'', episode "The Blue Spirit", in which despite the fact that Commander Zhao is visiting someone else's command, the messenger hawk flies directly to him. And at exactly the right plot-appropriate moment. Smart hawks.

* ''{{Warhammer}}'': TheEmpire uses pigeons as weapons (like a messenger but with bombs), however if there is a change, it will completely miss its target or just go right back to its master...

* {{Lampshaded}} in the ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "The Runaway", when Sokka purchases a Messenger Hawk only to discover it didn't come with a manual. Telling it to take a message to "Gran-Gran, South Pole" doesn't help, though by the end of the episode it seems to have developed a magical GPS service for Toph's parents, though they at least live in a town and not ''the south pole''. To be fair, there hasn't been any evidence yet that Hawky actually successfully delivered the message.