Talk:Rock Pigeon/Archive 1

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Contents 1 Breeding information 2 Illustration rock dove 3 North America 4 Maritime? 5 What about Passenger Pigeons? 6 Drinks? 7 what is their predator? 8 Capitalization 9 terminology 10 Definition of "Feral" 11 Taxobox image. 12 not neutral?

[edit] Breeding information

I read that pigeons are sitting their eggs for 18 to 20 days until the young birds arrive. I would like to see some details on breeding here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.202.49.67 (talk • contribs) 1 July 2003

[edit] Illustration rock dove

The illustration does not show a wild rock dove, but a domesticated pigeon. Some features don't correspond to the wild birds (e.g. the bill). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.152.202.137 (talk • contribs) 2 December 2003

And "pinning for the fjords"? Forget the fact that it should be "pining", since when is Wikipedia a Monty Python fan club? --Christophernicus 20:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] North America

Isn't this the species that is present in North America? Article only mentions Europe. Rmhermen 14:43, Jul 2, 2004 (UTC)

see amended opening paragraphs, which should clarify jimfbleak 15:47, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Maritime?

Here's perhaps a harder question. Why are its haunts maritime? It seems a pretty terrestrial bird to me. Rmhermen 16:36, Jul 2, 2004 (UTC)

The wild bird is a cliff-breeder, and therfore usually associated with coastal= maritime areas - not the same as marine! jimfbleak 19:30, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

So the one which is maritime is the wild bird not the feral one? Rmhermen 21:51, Jul 2, 2004 (UTC)

The wild birds are found on cliffs, and the feral ones use buildings as substitute cliffs. However, interbreeding means that even on the coasts most birds are not pure Rock Doves; outside the natural range, they are all off feral stock wherever they are: Jim

[edit] What about Passenger Pigeons?

It seems like what was the most common bird in the world, and perhaps the first, most widely recognized 'Pigeon' should at least be mentioned here. A link to that wiki page would make sense, wouldn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.38.153.4 (talk • contribs) 14 June 2005

Why? All the pigeons are listed under the family article. Passenger Pigeon is completely unrelated to Rock Dove, and when it was extant didn't even share the same continent. Are you suggesting that this link goes onto every (potentially 300) pigeon article? If not, why Rock Dove?

Why "first" pigeon - why most widely recognised? It never occurred outside North America jimfbleak 16:31, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sorry, I was thinking narrowly about the US. I believe my confusion is clarified by the sentence - 'In common usage, this bird is often simply referred to as the "pigeon".'

Passenger and Rock Pigeons didn't share the same continent? Passenger Pigeons went extinct in 1914, and Rock Pigeons were introduced in 1606. Thus, they did share the same continent. --Evice 03:05, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drinks?

"Like other pigeons it often drinks." - What does this mean? Why is it signifigant enough to have it's own paragraph? Last I checked, ALL animals have to drink (water) to survive. Is this some kind of vandalism that I just don't understand? Pacian 05:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed - its an odd statement. Its been in the article for a while, but I've removed it now. -- Solipsist 06:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

All animals have to ingest water: very many, including many birds, do not drink, but derive their water needs from their food. Kevin McE 12:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing that person meant to say that it drinks through its nostrils. --Evice 02:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

In city pigeons' case, soda and beer.

[edit] what is their predator?

I hate pigeons. They seem to have no predators in the urban environment. I'm wondering what animals would exist to keep pigeon population to a low if we introduced them to cities?--Sonjaaa 18:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The Peregrine Falcon is a feral pigeon eater in the wild and where it now breeds in cities - however, the pigeon racing fraternity would prefer to see the falcon exterminated, since they lose birds to the bird of prey! jimfbleak 19:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Healthy pigeons are quite interesting and attractive animals. The city birds are often in poor health, probably because humans (1) feed them inappropriate food -- food that isn't even very good for humans, and (2) throw scraps of their pwn food on the street rather than putting it in trash cans where it belongs. The result is that pigeons can be supported in good enough health to breed successfully enough to maintain large populations, but with such poor nutrition that even though the pigeons are alive and breeding they are not healthy.

Think about it. If the pigeons didn't eat the bread crumbs and the scattered Fritos, then the rats and mice would have that much more to eat. If people weren't litterbugs there would be fewer and healthier pigeons. Pigeons are much more monogamous than humans, take care of their young with sedulous care, both parents contributing to their feeding, create beautiful displays of precision flying, etc. Of course it is true that you don't want to park your car under a pigeon roost. What else can a healthy pigeon do to offend? P0M 07:25, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Why do you hate pigeons? I bet you do much more damage to the enviroment than 1 million pigeons do. I find them kinda cute. By the way, what should a pigeon be fed so he/she can be healthy? Cuzandor 23:58, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Pigeons in nature eat all kinds of grains. Eating a newly fallen grain of wheat is different from eating white bread because the grain has all its germ (embryonic wheat plant) and its natural roughage, all of the vitamins and minerals that are lost when the grain is processed to make the equivalent of leavened library paste :-( , etc. When I kept pigeons I used to buy a mixture of whole grains from the feed store up the street. Whole grains of corn probably are a little too large for pigeons to handle easily. That leaves the kinds of small grains like milo, millet, rape (Canola's source, a relative of radish if I remember correctly), etc., etc. If you go to one of the large chains like Home Depot or Lowes, and many supermarkets, you will find plastic 5 pound bags of mixed seeds. I guess the one thing I would avoid (other than whole corn) would be anything that was not a mix -- and that caution would apply only for pigeons who weren't going out and finding things to balance their diets on their own. The other thing that pigeons need is clean water. Living in the city they are likely to get all sorts of contaminants from puddles of water they find on the streets.

The person who "hates pigeons" may just be reacting to the sight and behavior of sick pigeons. Even some of the Wikipedia photos show birds that look unhealthy (feathers fluffed out as though for sleep, and drooping eyelids in the middle of the day are not good signs). Some pigeon diseases are transmissible to humans, and sharing air with sick pigeons that are nesting on one's 20th story window sill can get people seriously ill. Pigeons tend to be highly disease resistant in my experience, but if they are malnourished and drinking water that other pigeons and other species of birds have crapped in, then the chances of their getting a serious disease are greatly increased. It would be good if people in big cities could be encouraged to feed bird seed and not bread crumbs, Fritos, salty buttered popcorn, etc., etc. Omniverous umans can't even thrive on some of the junk that pigeons are being fed. P0M 13:54, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Also RAW peanuts (not salted). One acquaintance, more learned in wildlife lore than I, claims raw peanusts, which contain a trypsin inhibitor, would be a problem in large quantities, and that makes sense. But it seems that inhibitor is denatured in other legumes (e. g., soy beans used in animal fodder) by heat; we toast our peanuts at 300°F for about 15-20 minutes (much as we do nuts we buy for ourselves, but in our case, it's because they taste better...). Want a friend for life? Go to the park with a handful of peanuts. --djenner 12:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow, thank you! That was very helpful P0M. Cuzandor 19:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, can healthy pigeons get lethal diseases from other pigeons? Cuzandor 19:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The disease that I remember from my days of raising pigeons and other poultry is coccidiosis, a protozoan parasite that infects domestic animals, birds, and sometimes humans. (That's the reason you don't want to share space with pigeons who are not on medical care.) Since pigeons live in flocks they can easily pass the disease among themselves. If I recall correctly, we used to put stuff in the water to prevent infections from setting in, so I suspect that drinking from a puddle recently visited by a sick bird may be a common way of catching that disease. Coccidiosis is a serious disease both for humans and for pigeons. P0M 01:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC) (Edited for clarity by Elvey)

Loving pigeons is fine, but getting them to pay rent is another story. I'm constantly battling for control of my apartment balcony, growing concerned about the health effects of cleaning up pigeon droppings, tossing out enough eggs to make a nice breakfast omelette, and getting peeved about my "second alarm clock" going off before I'm ready to get up for work in the morning (namely the loud coo-cooing right below my bedroom window). I added links on pigeon-related diseases such as histoplasmosis to the article for anyone who is interested. Anonymous - 01:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It's always interesting to see who has done their homework carefully. The New York City Health & Mental Hygiene folks have a note on the subject of pigeons and health that pretty much summarizes the long, and rather silly, papers one finds in the journal lit: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/epi/epi-pigeon.shtml. Short version: While you probably should not hang out with pigeons if you have a compromised immune system, well, you probably shouldn't be hanging with dogs, or cats or people, either; you might get sick. While pigeons do get sick, generally speaking what pigeons get you can't get. The most obvious zoonotic possibility: There is a very large family of viruses (paramyxoviruses — see the excellent Wikipedia article under that head); pigeons and other fowl (most notably chickens) get one kind; human beings get other kinds (notably, measles and the common cold). Like other animals, pigeons get ticks and other pests; those that live on pigeons pretty much can't survive or breed on human beings (see Haag-Wackernagel, "Parasites from feral pigeons as a health hazard for humans" in Ann Appl Biol, 147 (2005) 203–210; Haag-Wackernagel seems not very fond of pigeons, and even he can't really come up with much to say against them). Pigeons poop; the poop is very rich and omnipresent soil microbes will grow in it — this is why it's prized as fertilizer; pigeon poop is not hazardous waste (unless, perhaps, you roll around in it, but we can leave out the perverted from our consideration?...), is entirely water-soluble and is easily managed (of course, building and park personnel would have to wash things once in awhile, and this could prove a union problem, them having to work...)[again, cf: the NYCHMH article]. Birds do poop, and if you happen to be under the tree when they do, they gotcha. May be a pigeon, may be a sparrow, may be, well, whatever bird happens to be around.

BUT: Want the perfect urban pet? Find a small flock of pigeons. Spend a little time with a half cup of birdseed and a small handful of peanuts for a few days, and the birds will recognize you, come to you, sit with you and be quite attentive as you tell them of your cares and woes. And, no 6AM walkies. And, no smelly (and messy, and unhealthy) litterboxes.

Clearly, there are people who don't like birds. The fears are generally less than rational; when reasons are advanced, they are frequently æsthetic, matters of taste — and thus not really disputable, but merely personal at most. Other people dislike cats. Other people dislike dogs. All of these really are just a matter of taste (or a penchant for confusing Woody Allen movies — "rats with wings" was popularized in "Stardust Memories" — with reality). Other people dislike Asians, or Jews or persons of color. --djenner 12:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

I propose renaming the article Rock pigeon and lowercasing all references in the text (thus rock pigeon), making it compliant with Wikipedia policy, unless there is a strong ornithological reason not to do so. ProhibitOnions 20:25, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

not again! - for years now the agreed standard for bird species' articles has been capitalisation, for reasons discussed at length in the past. More than two thousand bird articles have the caps format, with sometimes hundreds of links from each article as well (see list of hummingbirds or dove. If you are not happy with the long-standing consensus, please raise it on the ToL discussion page. jimfbleak 20:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, there. The designation is a common name that has only recently been adopted as an official description for the bird by some organizations, which was not without controversy. I raised the question not about "the long-standing consensus" about bird species, but about this one species in particular. I take your reasoning to be a strong ornothological reason. ProhibitOnions 21:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] terminology

The beginning of the article referred to "feral pigeon, homing pigeon, or domestic pigeon" as common synonyms for "Rock pigeon." Why mix two generic terms "feral pigeon" and "domestic pigeon" (which are antonyms, for what it's worth), with the name of a specific breed of pigeon -- a breed so little understood by the average speaker of English that what is actually a homing pigeon will frequently (even in encyclopedias) be called a "carrier pigeon" -- which is another breed. Why pick the name of one breed out of a list of dozens of breeds? Why use a breed to stand in for the set of all breeds plus the actual Rock pigeons from which all these breeds were developed?

Homing pigeons are frequently of the general color pattern shown in the individual at the top of the taxonomy box, but they can be distinguished from non-homing pigeons by a couple peculiarities of their head shape. It is not unheard of for a homing pigeon to fail to make it home and take up life "on the streets," or perhaps even for some keeper of pigeons to free his/her flock for some reason. So one might find the occasional homing pigeon on the streets of any major city, but it's hard to imagine anybody knowing the name "homing pigeon" confusing that name with all feral pigeons. It is even more unlikely that a citation can be provided that establishes the equation of "feral pigeon" and "homing pigeon" in the accounts of anyone writing a peer-reviewed article.

I have accordingly cut the reference to "homing pigeon" in the intro paragraph. P0M 07:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of "Feral"

Maybe I missed it, but perhaps near the beginning, a definition of the word "feral" could be added--most people don't know the strict definition of the word. A wild Rock Pigeon who has adapted to domestic life is not feral. A domestic bird who has escaped to the wild is feral.

So were you saying that another name for wild Rock Pigeon is Feral Pigeon, or that Feral Pigeon is a common name for wild Rock Pigeons living in cities but that the term is incorrect, or were you saying that Feral Pigeon is the term for domestic pigeons escaped to the wild, possibly crossbred with Rock Pigeons?

Also, are the variations of domestic pigeons actually considered separate breeds?

Adding this information at the beginning of the article, in order to explain the bird's name, might be helpful.

Thanks for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eccodolphin (talk • contribs) 9 May 2006

[edit] Taxobox image.

I replaced the taxobox image with one where the pigeon is (a) facing left, and (b) occupying more of the frame. I don't know enough about birds to make a good caption for it, however. The plumage pattern looks pretty close to the one in the other image, but I could be wrong. If anyone knows, help would be appreciated. grendel|khan 05:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Selective breeding has produced many strains of pigeons with different colors. There would be some point in getting a photograph of a pigeon from a truly wild population, but I don't know whether unmised wild populations exist anymore. The picture you have provided looks fine to me. It's the sickly birds on the left side of the page that bother me. P0M 22:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I suspect the birds on the left are less sickly than you imagine. Whilst I don't doubt your earlier comments about sickness being common in urban pigeons, the main reason these pigeons have ruffled feathers and are not particularly active is simply that it was a cold, misty, winter morning in Hyde Park, London. The fluffed feathers is probably a reaction to retain body heat similar to goose bumps in humans. -- Solipsist 11:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I checked the hi-resolution picture. You are right. Their eyes look normal. So the caption should indicate why they are puffed up. It is indeed to retain heat better. P0M 19:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Be bold -- Solipsist 17:58, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] not neutral?

Why is there a neutrality challenge on this article? Looks like vandalism to me. P0M 05:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. There are a lot of disputes on this talk page--and there's nothing wrong with this, but I don't see any real major issues. We should take this off, maybe I will. Cazort 22:45, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Well the POV tag was added in this edit by an anon. And I guess they have a point, although it is also true that pigeons are seen as vermin by many people. As such I've reworded the most POV paragraph and tried to improve the structure of the 'Feral pigeons in cities' sections, although the flow of ideas is still a little muddled here even though the material is mostly good. In any case, its good enough to remove the POV tag. -- Solipsist 07:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)