Bizarre Pigeon Behaviour

OldBobby

OldBobby

OldBobby

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Joined
29 Oct 2014
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Staines, almost on-Thames
I’m not really a wildlife type of person but my wife takes great delight in feeding the birds in our garden. As you’d expect, we get a few pigeons who come and pick up the seeds that fall on the floor, but last year I noticed that a pair of pigeons regularly arrived together, but one prevented the other one from eating by chasing it around and pecking at it in an aggressive manner. It’s not a mating gesture.

Quite bizarrely, this year they are back again, still together, but still with one chasing the other around and stopping it getting anywhere near the food, even at the expense of getting at the food itself! The other one is now looking worse for wear and you can see where it’s feathers have been pecked and pulled. It’s also much skinnier than the other one because it obviously can’t eat without being chased off.

It does beg the question, why are they still together?!!!!

Do pigeons replicate human behaviour that much?!
 
I've traveled the world and the seven seas and I can tell you everybody's looking for something.

Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused.

Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree?
 
mmj_uk said:
I've traveled the world and the seven seas and I can tell you everybody's looking for something.

Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused.

Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree?
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Hold your head up, keep your head up, movin' on!
 
OldBobby said:
Not sure of the difference, but wood pigeons I assume as they live in the trees!
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Hehe.

Wood pigeons walk upright like penguins.

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We actually have something similiar two pigeons come back last few years one is massive which the kids dubbed "fatty pigeon" as when it goes to bathe in our fountain it causes a massive splash and sometimes we have to top it back up as that much water comes out. The other one is smaller but in good health. They made a nest in the neighbours tree next to our garage last year and had chicks. Then our neighbour went and trimmed his trees/bushes and disturbed them not sure what happened after that but both were back this year. We did find empty egg shells outside the garage so one assumes they hatched and flew off.
 
OldBobby said:
Not sure of the difference, but wood pigeons I assume as they live in the trees!
Click to expand...

I'm going to say that while the aggressive one may be the same as last year, the other one is different. It sounds to me like both times it was an adult woodpigeon with its young, which always look skinnier and worse for wear compared to the adults. It's normal behavior for the adults to attack the younger ones once they're out of the nest, which encourages them to find food for themselves.

If they were two adult woodpigeons, the other would be unlikely to look a lot smaller even if it wasn't getting enough to eat. They have a lot of feathers, so the main way to tell if they're at their ideal weight is to pick them up and feel the chest bone: if it's prominent then it's skinny, but if you have to press a bit harder to feel it, it's at its ideal weight. I've picked up woodpigeons that look identical, but have a 100g+ difference in weight when you put them on the scales, which is a lot when you consider the overall weight of the bird.
 
Yeah are we talking about wood pigeons or ferral rock doves?

Pigeons are funny.
Birds in general will often spend more time bickering over food than eating.

The goldfinch here always squabble over it.
The green finch are big enough to just displace them! :D

Magpies chase everything off as they had a nest!

But having the the chickens means no more pigeon fun!
 
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