Learning to Fly

I have been putting the baby pigeon outside in an old parrot cage for a while every day so it can watch the other pigeons and maybe figure out how to be one. This morning I let it out inside the house for a while to stretch its wings. All it wants to do is sit on my shoulder. Once in a while it gives me little kisses, or nibbles on my ear. Pigeons are very affectionate birds. That's not anthropomorphism, if you watch them in the wild you will see pairs of pigeons grooming each other, feeding each other, and nuzzling a lot.

My chickens don't do that. If the hens are nuzzling around on a rooster's neck it's because they're pecking his feathers out and eating them. They do that when they need more protein, a handful of cat food every day for a while will stop them.

Pigeons are very easy to have in the house. They are precision flyers. When they're babies they will flap their wings and just go up and down a few feet. They don't just take off and crash land in the bushes like fledgling songbirds. A baby pigeon will not actually fly horizontally until it's quite sure it can get back to its nest. This is undoubtedly a good thing, considering pigeons are cliff-nesters.

A cat vet in Sacramento used to keep a pigeon in his office. It would fly around from perch to perch and entertain the cats who were penned as boarders or patients.

This one won't be going out in the big pigeon pen until it's better at flying. For one thing, the other pigeons will hassle it for a while. Each pigeon has a preferred roosting spot in the pen and each will defend it. If I put in a new roost and stick the baby on it, they'll leave it alone. But the baby needs to fly well enough to get down to the food and water and then back up to its roost.

I'm also concerned about the hawks. We seem to have more of them all the time. Yesterday there was a very small, dark hawk that had a bird on the ground right outside the kitchen window. I thought it was a pigeon and stumbled for the door. The prey was screeching and fighting back. John was outside and got to the birds before I did. He booted the hawk with his toe and it tried to fly off with its prey, but dropped it. It was a scrub jay and it managed to fly away.

I think it's interesting that the jay was fighting back. Pigeons don't do that. They just give up. They'll take advantage of an opportunity to escape if the hawk isn't diligent, but otherwise they just seem to be resigned to their fate. They do the same when I catch them and always seem relieved when they don't get eaten.

My flock is getting smarter about hawks. They listen to the chickens. They always have a sentinel posted on the highest pole. I just wish the danged hawks would stay out in the fields, where there is an abundance of mice, voles, and jackrabbits. I used to keep a bird feeder in the yard and enjoyed watching the wild birds that gathered there. The Cooper's hawk used it as a fast food restaurant.