Bird, Formula One Car In Bold Game Of Chicken At Monaco [Video]

Can a pigeon play chicken? The so-called Matrix bird wouldn’t stand down from a Formula One race car in the middle of last week’s Monaco Grand Prix. The pigeon species, which I believe to be the invasive Eurasian Collared Dove, didn’t seem to bat an eye when Felipe Nasr came speeding over in a practice run.

Twitter and YouTube followers loved the viral video of the brave — or extremely lucky — bird who held its ground in the face of the Formula 1 car. Check it out below, and you too won’t believe your eyes.

Some observers are apparently tumbling pigeon fans, and they seem to believe that the dove deliberately performed the backflips when the GP2 car blew past. That led to widespread comments along the lines of “Bird stares down death before flipping out of the way.”

For instance, Twitter user Dawn Lightsey’s tweeted: “Matrix Bird escapes death by backflipping to avoid Formula 1 Car…”

However, others have commented that the acrobatic flips probably weren’t intentional. Instead, the bird probably got flipped against its will by the blast of air spilling off the vehicle’s aerodynamic body.

I’m with the second school of thought. Pigeons aren’t automatically masters of the Matrix. Most skilled tumblers are highly developed breeds of domestic pigeons, not random Eurasian Collared Doves, a completely different species and genus.

But I can’t blame people for becoming confused, when pigeons come in so many packages, up to and including elite pigeons like the $400,000 Bolt who recently set a record price for a Belgian racing pigeon at an auction earlier this month.

Anyway, however it happened, the inspiring performance by the undaunted dove can’t help but make you smile.

What do you think of one brave bird’s Formula One car chicken game?

[Eurasian Collared Dove photo by Dick Daniels and Carolina Birds via Wikimedia Commons]