Why don’t we ever see baby pigeons?

VISIT any town or city, and you’re likely to see them everywhere; pigeons, those most ubiquitous of urban birds.

Those grey, white, black and brown-feathered friends that sit or walk, bobbing their heads, on pavements, walls, parapets and buildings cooing sweetly, raining down their excrement and odd feather.

But there is something odd about pigeons. We see them old and hobbling, mature and wise, young and a little foolish, playing a game of proverbial chicken with the oncoming traffic. Yet we never see their babies.

Which, given the abundance of pigeons, begs the question why?

Feral pigeons – the ones we see in our cities – are descended from rock doves, and remain essentially the same bird. Their tastes might be a little more cosmopolitan, but when it comes to reproduction they still take after their wild rock dove ancestors, which are very secretive when it comes to situating their nests.

Today, with an absence of edgy cliffs, rocky crags and dingy caves in our cities, the feral pigeon must make do, constructing its nest in whatever out-of-the-way, covered spots it can find, such as church towers, abandoned buildings or beneath bridges.

What about young pigeons that have recently fledged? Surely we see these?

Well, yes. Fledgling pigeons are everywhere, but they are not easy to identify, as many of you appreciated. This is largely down to the fact that squabs, as if ashamed of their appearance, stay in the nest for a very long time: the nestling period from hatching to fledging typically lasts more than 40 days, roughly twice that of most garden birds.

During this time, the parents feed their chicks with a regurgitated “crop milk” rich in protein and fat. So when squabs finally fly the nest they are fully grown and virtually indistinguishable from adults.

With a keen eye, however, it is possible to spot a fledged but still-juvenile pigeon.

It won’t have the shimmery greens and purples around its neck and the cere – that wattly growth that sits on top of the bill – will be a pinky grey rather than bright white as it is in adults. –bbc/earth

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