Question: how come you never see a baby pigeon? Answer: you’re not looking hard enough. Actually, the answer might best be approached with another question: how many baby birds does anybody ever see? Ducklings, sure, but ducks are precocial, meaning they are ready to roll (and swim and follow their parents) pretty much as soon as they break out of their eggs. (There are levels of precociality; ducklings still need to stick with their parents for food.) Many other birds are altricial, meaning they are quite helpless upon hatching. That fine old expression “naked as a jay bird” sums it up nicely. True, they develop very rapidly, pushing out downy fuzz, then feathers, and then flying within a month of hatching, but while in the nest they are especially vulnerable. Sitting ducks, as it were. This is why nests are usually hidden away. Raptors, Crows, Blue Jays, among other birds, love to eat eggs and baby birds, as do raccoons and other mammals (Templeton the Rat’s infatuation with an egg has never left my imagination). Simply put, birds don’t want you to see their young.
There are several Rock Dove, or pigeon, nests under this overpass. All are fairly exposed, but you wouldn’t notice them unless you cross under and look up. Interestingly, they are all on the east side of the struts, presumably because of the wind off the harbor. Columbia livia was originally a cliff dweller, one of the reasons they have taken so well to cities, which are full of heights and ledges and nooks and crannies.
Backyard and Beyond 
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