Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Young Pigeons



Two days back I stopover at one of my friends home where she is staying in 4 th floor.while talking with her Just As I looked out onto the balcony, I saw two young pigeons in one of her flower pot..I wondered why the birds had nested there, right in front of the window, near the swish of the curtains and people moving around inside the flat. Usually People often wonder why they never see baby pigeons ?But I amazed when I looked at the Squabs just near to me.Squab is a still nested bird (in the pigeon species) that has not yet learned to fly.

Young Pigeons have a demure and gentle appearance with small, narrow beaks with large awkward eyes and almost thin floppy neck.. the beak on this young bird was anything but small. I can see that some of the beak will be covered by the feathers that will grow in front of the bird’s beak and start to stretch his wings, On closer inspection,


I saw a little black eye blinking! I got the camera again as the young bird poked his head out. He pulled back in when I got close. But I saw he was good in size

.One of the parent watching its young one from the distance and came back two more times to the nest.
Some interesting facts about pigeons
Source-Encyclopedia

Pigeons are found almost everywhere on Earth; however, they don’t occur in very cold places or in very dry places.
Pigeon and dove are synonyms: they are the same thing. There are 309 different species, belonging to the taxonomic family Columbidae.
During the first several days the baby pigeon’s eyes remain closed and the squab remains relatively quiet in the nest. Once the eyes open, however, many baby pigeons are ready to start moving about.
Baby pigeons rely on “pigeon milk” for nourishment after their resting period. This is a mixture of regurgitated food and water delivered by the parents in the same fashion that most bird parents feed their young. The feeding process is relatively simple as the pigeon milk is poured directly down the young bird’s gullet from the parent’s beak.
When the baby pigeons start to develop the ability to move, which is around the time that their feathers start to resemble that of an adult pigeon, they need a larger space than that of their original nesting place. I
By the time the little guys grow to about 4 weeks in age, it is time for them to move away from home and start feeding themselves
Pigeons drink water by sucking it up through the beak, a feature unusual in birds
Pigeons are powerful flyers. Racing pigeons can reach speeds of 70 km/hr (44 mph).
Because of their amazing ability to find their way home, even over very large distances, homing pigeons have been used to deliver messages since the time of the early Egyptians.
The familiar city pigeon is just one of a large family of beautiful and adaptable birds. Humans have a mixed relationship with these interesting species

6 comments:

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lena said...

as always your post is very informative! thank you for sharing :) Enjoyed reading it!

Pree said...

Very Informative post..a lot of efforts have gone in to the post about pigeons.

Cheers !!!

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

now that was interesting reading about this lovely species of bird...during my childhood years, I saw so many varieties of them in my garden...one of the favourites was a white variety with upright feathers on its head and the tail feathers up, just like a peacock and the best part to me was while feeding and when it would be time for them to lay eggs...they would collect all kind of withered items and branches to make the nest and we would happily provide them near the house...lovely reminiscing those memories...!

Prajeeth Prasadan said...

good post.