Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Pigeon Hatchlings


To my surprise, today, as I was opening the windows, I noticed that the Pigeon outside our window, normally sitting on dead or infertile eggs, was feeding its young! Two little fuzzies, and boy are they ugly!

This grey one is actually the female, because though the male and female take turns sitting on the eggs during the day, the female tends to sit on them at night.


These ones are about 10 days old, and must have hatched just before we left for the weekend. Maybe we hadn't noticed because it's been so hot and we've been keeping the curtains closed!


Pigeons are not actually a cause for concern about public health. According to the Urban Wildlife Society, the disease they carry are of little risk to humans (see it here). 

Like many birds, these birds mate for life and this couple has been trying very hard to produce offspring. It takes about 2-3 weeks for the eggs to incubate and hatch. In the year I have been here, I've seen them sit on about a half dozen eggs (mostly in warmer weather) and this is the first successful batch!

Now that they are born, they are going to sit out there for up to a month, living uniquely on regurgitated curd from their parents for the first week, progressively upgrading to solid food. 



information source: wiki and animal-world.com

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