kqedscience:

These 100-Year-Old Aerial Photos Were Taken by Pigeons

“In 1903, a German pharmacist named Julius Neubronner started employing carrier pigeons to receive and fulfill emergency prescriptions from a hospital in the region. One day, after a bird of his mysteriously returned after being lost a month late, Julius began to devise a way to track their flights.

Shortly after, the avid tinkerer and amateur photographer developed a lightweight, timer camera rig that his pigeons could wear in flight to snap rare aerial photos, the likes of which, at the time, could only be captured via balloons or kites.”