Why don't you ever see baby pigeons
After watching our baby eagles for days and days, the old question came up: “Why don't you ever see baby pigeons?"
Well, here is one. The summary answer is that given a pigeon’s developmental plan, they never leave the nest until they are fully formed, feathered and trained by their doting parents.
Pigeons build pitifully inadequate nests high up in buildings, bridges and other city structures in hard to observe places. What you see in the above photo is about the sum total of a pigeon’s nest, just a few sticks and street scraps, often precariously located on a ledge high above the ground.
By the way, pigeons and doves are essentially the same bird although they came in a vast array of sizes, colors and markings. Their young are called “squab."
Initially the eggs are incubated to both keep them warm and to prevent them from rolling out of the meager, temporary nest. To speed development, pigeons have a very rare capacity for birds; they generate highly nutritious “crop-milk” that the babies access by putting their beak deep into the parent’s throat. Rich in fats and protein, this milk also passes along immunities to disease and possibly that “street-smart-attitude” pigeons all have.
Both pigeon parents, working as a team, like our eagles, take devoted care of the hatchlings, and keep them safe for a month or more until they fledge. At that point the youngsters can fly off and join the crowd on the sidewalk without raising any question that they are, well, not just another pigeon.
