For long time bird fans, its been gratifying and somewhat amusing to watch the growing interest in neighborhood birds in this time of unplanned change of focus.
Birds around our homes entertain and provide some solace – as I write noisy crows keep up their fuss along my street; I think must be new fledglings since they suddenly started persistent noisy squawks a couple days ago.
Early in our “stay home” routine I heard questions from a couple folks about the behavior of house sparrows around their homes and neighborhoods. Great! I want now to sing the praise of pigeons, those other quintessential urban birds.
Perhaps the most despised and loved of urban birds, we hear many dismissive, or worse, stories of good hearted people who feed pigeons, while pigeon fanciers by selective breeding have developed beautiful and unusual forms. Their famed homing ability combined with remarkable flying style have kept racing pigeons popular for generations. Mating, breeding and other aspects of pigeon lives make for fascinating observation; an internet search turns up a wealth of articles.
A recent podcast from the American Birding Association features a New York City researcher who has studied differences between that city’s pigeons and those of Boston. It’s an entertaining story about pigeons and the oddity of wildlife research in densely populated cities, including netting birds with curious people watching.
City Pigeons and Urban Evolution
The research is focused on evolutionary differences – why would birds in such similar environments show significant genetic difference? That pigeons were so readily able to adapt to “cliffs” on our buildings from their native habitat says something about their genetics, I suppose.
Take a moment to recall that Darwin's famous treatise was partly inspired and supported by his close study of pigeon breeding. So take another look or two at these common yet remarkable birds. And they feed our peregrines!