Apparently they normally would nest on rocky cliff edges and stuff so they just need enough material to stop the egg from rolling away. It still looks heaps silly, though.
perhaps they should just lay square eggs
Like a wombat?
Explain the doormat now
Well they don’t really care about nesting in the open, obviously, and the doormat is softer and replicates short lichen and/or grass. Soft is clearly better and it also means that the egg can’t roll away.
Was that supposed to be gotcha or something?
You don’t always have to do what Jesus says, you know.
Yes. You have been gotted.
Anything above ground level = cliff, to a pigeon. I bet this is a 2nd+ story entrance to an apartment.
Pigeons are domesticated rock doves. They live on cliffs so the sticks are just there to keep the eggs from rolling away.
Everyone’s laughing at her shitty ability to make a nest, but I’m incredibly impressed she managed to weave an entire fucking doormat!
For millennia they were beloved pets and messengers. We bred independence out of them and doted upon them. Then we invented the telephone and cast them all out into the wild en masse. It’s amazing they’ve survived this well.
They are as we made them, and as we rejected them.
For real?
Kinda, not really. In the wild, pigeons build their nests on cliffs, so they really only need just enough nest to keep the eggs from rolling off. That’s why they make dopey lil stick piles instead of proper bowl-shaped nests
I’m not an ornithologist, so the following is my own uneducated hypothesis: pigeons haven’t adapted to live in cities, cities just mimic their natural habitats. They’ve survived this well because we’ve made great big terrariums for them
Lol no
I have never ever seen a baby pigeon. Not even a picture. Where are they hiding them?!
In the fake bird factory #birdsarentreal
Ever seen a Dodo bird? Imagine that but smaller and more fucked up. The reason for this is because the Dodo bird was a type of pigeon that had developed neotenic traits which combined with island gigantism resulted in the ever beloved but extict island bird we know and nourn today.
Also neoteny is the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood.
I sometimes come across a dead baby pigeon inside my work building, a large manufacturing structure many pigeons find their way into. Presumably the death is from falling out of the kind of nest in OP’s image.
Pigeons spend a long time in the nest, so if they survive long enough to leave, they’ll basically look like regular pigeons
At least, that’s what they want you to think
They look like grey feathered balls of fur with a wrinkly head.
I’ve seen baby doves, which look pretty damn close to pigeons, and I can assure you that they are quite hideous.
I had a pair of pigeons nesting on a half inch ledge above a vent at the roof line of my old house and my back porch was always covered in splattered pigeon eggs.
I’m proud of them, they’re doing their best.
minimum wage, minimum effort.
c/therewasanattempt
Big draw the rest of the owl energy
I honestly wonder how birds started making nests, from an evolutionary perspective. Like they must have started this simple… So what benefit did it provide?
I think the few sticks arranged around this egg are mostly there to act as chocks to keep the egg from rolling too far. This was easier than evolving square eggs.
Laying eggs on the ground is a good way to get them eaten by a predator. Some reptiles bury their eggs, that’s one option. But then you can’t really keep an eye on them or take care of the babies once they hatch. So maybe you try to find a nice safe place to keep them off the ground instead. Critters who were better at keeping their eggs from falling out of the tree or off the cliff had more babies, so nest-building behaviors get reinforced, even if it’s just laying a few twigs in the crook of a tree. Stick-loving birds get rewarded!
They did not start this way. We domesticated them. Then we rejected them. They’re still figuring out how to be wild again. All those pigeons you see are the descendants of formerly beloved pets that we threw outside without a care around 150 years ago.
Like flushing goldfish down a toilet.
It’s the effort that counts
