Animal Facts: Pick another animal or return to overview:

Rock Dove (Pigeon) Columbia livia

Oh great! Another boring little bird to look at. NOT. Here is one of the most studied animals you will encounter this semester. There are more papers on its behavior that all those on lions, dolphins and elephants put together. Here is a bird that can recognize at least 400 faces, a bird whose ancestral habit of nesting on cliffs allows it to easily exploit city life, a bird that feeds its young milk, and a bird that could gain you an "A" in the course. All you have to do is devise a 100% accurate way to tell males and females apart without handling them. It has to work for any bird we can find on the Green at any time of year.

Pigeons breed several times a year on campus -- starting early in March(!!). Pigeons have a characteristic that makes them especially good subjects for animal behavior observations -- you can tell individuals apart by coloration pattern. That means you can find and watch the same individuals under different situations as well as keep track of which bird is which in groups.

Speaking of groups, pigeons, like house sparrows, tend to forage in groups. The behavior of groups and of individuals interacting within them is going to occupy a large part of our time this fall. Pigeons are a great animal to learn from. For a start, try to see how they differ from sparrows in the dynamics of group movements. Describe the leaving and returning behavior of groups of each species until you see a general pattern -- it shouldn't take long. Why do you think these differences exist? Notice, also, where the forage. Are there any consistent between species differences there too?

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