Urban Myth Busting

“Have you ever seen a baby pigeon?” Well, yes, and now so have you. After all, they do not spontaneously rise out of nothing fully feathered as adult birds. I have seen the young ‘uns both in the nest and recently fledged, and, as in this unfortunate case, dead. Yup, the Rock Pigeons (Columba livia) are already working on the first of this year’s broods (not much else is yet, besides great horned owls); a local underpass has several active nests, and in addition to this dead youngster, there was also a broken egg on the ground below another nest ~ these are the hazards of building nests on edges and ledges.

But I usually answer with a question: how many baby birds of any species have you seen? Most birds generally hide their nests because their young are so helpless. They don’t want you to see them (after all, our species are bird eaters from way back). But the nesting season — which for Pigeons means behind the awning of your favorite deli, among other places, and inside lamp posts for House sparrows, and tucked into cornices for Kestrels, and behind prison walls for Peregrines — is beginning, so youngsters will soon be all around us, whether we see them or not.