It seems the laughter from the children and the crumbs from morning tea have enticed a new visitor to SBS...

Bruce the Pigeon! Although Bruce has still to win some of our hearts, he seems to have made himself very comfortable at school, especially in the junior corridor. Bruce can often be found overseeing the children's reading and writing from a perch in the roof, wandering through the corridors looking for someone to sit with at morning tea or tapping at the window waiting for his favourite teacher, Helen Stedman, to open it for him.

As Bruce is very reluctant to leave the grounds here are some pigeon facts to help us understand our new visitor:

• Pigeons are incredibly complex and intelligent animals. They are one of only a small number of species to pass the ‘mirror test’ – a test of self-recognition. They can also recognise each letter of the human alphabet, differentiate between photographs, and even distinguish different humans within a photograph.
• Pigeons are renowned for their outstanding navigational abilities. They use a range of skills, such as using the sun as a guide and an internal ‘magnetic compass’. A study at Oxford University found that they will also use landmarks as signposts and will travel along man-made roads and motorways, even changing direction at junctions.
• Pigeons are highly sociable animals. 
• Pigeons have excellent hearing abilities. They can detect sounds at a far lower frequency than humans are able to, and can hear distant storms and volcanoes.

Although the children will not be at school during our current lockdown, hopefully Bruce will find some company with the builders who are trying to finish our classrooms before we get back to school.