Why do we never see baby pigeons?

It is difficult to find a person who has never seen pigeons. The more difficult thing, perhaps, is to find the one who saw their chicks. Surprisingly, despite the fact that pigeons surround us everywhere, we only see adult individuals. Why does this happen and what do the young of these birds actually look like?

The answer to this question lies in the peculiarities of pigeon physiology. In many birds of other species, fledglings—small, barely fledged chicks—leave their nests. They clumsily try to fly, flitting from place to place under the supervision of their elders. That's why we often see small sparrows, young magpies and other urban birds.

Things are different for pigeons. Unlike many other birds, pigeon chicks develop more slowly and leave the nest only when they are already able to fly and look like adults. In cities and villages, rock pigeons live among people and nest in attics and other secluded places. But in the wild, these birds build nests high on rocks and in crevices. In such conditions, a chick that cannot fly well is almost certainly doomed to death.

Pigeons are well adapted to life in cities, and their behavior has evolved to minimize risks to their offspring. They nest in hard-to-reach places and keep their chicks in the nest for a long time, which helps them avoid contact with potential threats. These birds feed their chicks with so-called “bird milk” - a special secretion that is produced in the crop of the parents. This allows parents not to leave the nest for a long time in search of food, which also helps the chicks remain hidden from prying eyes.

Due to their slower development, young pigeons do not leave their nests until they are completely ready to fly. At this age, they are almost no different from adults and an inexperienced person is unlikely to notice the difference. Only scientists and people who breed pigeons can tell exactly where the chicks are and where their parents are.

Although in cities pigeons cannot build nests on rocks inaccessible to predators, instinct forces them to choose the most inaccessible places. Most often these are tall buildings, attics, cornices, bridges and other structures. The females of these birds lay one, or less often two, eggs and incubate them for 16-19 days.

When the chicks hatch, they look typical of babies: small, blind, with sparse yellow feathers. However, the baby pigeons grow rapidly, and after two or three weeks they are difficult to recognize. At this age, they do not cause affection: bulging eyes, a large knotted beak, gray sparse fluff and quite large sizes. Those who were lucky enough to observe fledgling pigeons at this age claim that these are the ugliest chicks.

But this period does not last long. At the age of approximately 30 days, the chick is no longer different from the adult bird. On days 35-37 of life they learn to fly. Experts say that approximately half of the pigeons that we see on the street are chicks that were born not so long ago.

If you want to learn more about how a dove grows day by day, we have a separate post about it.