The flying of flute-carrying pigeons is an old traditional sport in China. The flutelets, sounded by the natural wind and weighing a few grams only, are skilfully made of miniatur calebasses, bamboo, reeds and the bones of goats. At the bottom of the tiny instruments there is a small wooden "foot", provided with a little hole, which is stuck through the quills of the pigeon's middle tail feathers which are bound together by means of a small cable binder. A little locking ring is stuck through the foot's hole and the pigeon is ready for takeoff ...

To form a "flying orchestra", several fluting pigeons are let off at once. The ensemble is flying around its transportable dovecote up to a distance of a few hundred meters. The acoustic impression is great. The birds' flying direction, whether they approach or fly away, even their wing's beats can be heard distinctly as a changing of sound-frequency and vibrato ...

Particularly blind people are enthusiastic about this experience, because they are able for the first time to "see" by their ears, what sorts of things a bird does in the air ...

Here a recording of the fluting-pigeons of my friend Reinhold Deubelli from Landshut, a person, who not only trains pigeons with enthusiasm, but does the little instruments too by his own! The sound-image "shows" the approaching pigeons, doing a flyover and flying away from the listener, coming nearer again; then some animals land, while two pigeons fly on ...

SOUNDBAG is an internet project by Rolf Langebartels. A collection of items relating to Sound Art and Audio Art. Contributions are welcome. Please send them to the email address below.