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Pigeon Religion: Street Smarts via the Birds

by Pigeon Patrol | Dec 7, 2021 | Columbidae, Doves, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird

I remember the first time I saw Tina Piña Trachtenburg (aka Mother Pigeon) and her soft-sculptures of pigeons. I was enthusiastically starting work at More Art, a non-profit arts organization producing socially engaged public art exhibitions and educational activism throughout New York City. Walking by Piña Trachtenburg’s flock of stuffed pigeons artfully arranged on the cobblestone pavement of Union Square, was a very apt beginning to working with an organization developing public art and educational programs aimed at facilitating thought provoking responses to social, cultural and environmental concerns. All of the aforementioned issues are playfully addressed in Piña Trachtenburg’s multidisciplinary street art installation (she calls it an ‘outstallation’ due to her work being displayed outdoors). The pigeon is arguably New York City’s official unofficial bird, and the people of New York City generally have a love/hate relationship with these stout-bodied avians. Piña Trachtenburg’s realistically arranged grouping of pigeons seeks to raise awareness and empathy for these oft-misunderstood birds; and makes connections between natural and synthetic materials that shape and envelop our culture. Through her pigeon influenced pedagogy, we can learn about ourselves, our neighbors and the environment at large.

Pigeons taught Piña Trachtenburg about urban ecology. Studying and interacting with them on her Brooklyn rooftop became an experiential learning process. She even developed a bond with the birds she encountered and shared space with every day. This relationship and awareness led to her creating her coterie of soft-sculpture pigeons utilizing locally sourced materials such as recycled clothes for stuffing the bodies, wire for their feed and various colored acrylic fabric to represent their plumage. Her vibrant pigeon sculptures represent the different characteristics of the real pigeons she observes throughout the city. As for why pigeons make great artistic muses, she implores us to “Look at a pigeon the same way that you would look at a rose, or a bed of wild flowers. They are beautiful and unique, with each one being different from the rest. It is a privilege to have them around us.”

Piña Trachtenburg’s statement is similar to Georgia O’Keefe’s reasoning for devoting her aesthetic career to painting flowers, “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around, so they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”

One of the habits of mind we employ through art is noticing deeply (see: Educating Through Art), and Piña Trachtenburg’s work is effective for stopping us in our tracks, as well as inspiring our sense of inquiry (another habit of mind). Through performances with her pigeon sculptures, such as musical puppet shows, she communicates uplifting messages about the importance of caring for our surroundings. Her daily actions are documented through her Instagram, where she posts about interactions she has with her fellow humans and pigeons alike. She also discusses issues that affect our urban ecosystems, which include pollution, lack of affordable housing and the need to create safe spaces for all living creatures. Through her online and physical presence, Piña Trachtenburg advocates for us to love and respect our common feathered friends and even the rats, New York City’s other most oft-misunderstood and reviled wildlife species.

Piña Trachtenburg’s interdisciplinary approach of integrating natural and social sciences with the humanities (art, music, spirituality and performance), provides a holistic, down-to-earth perspective for environmental art education. Her multifaceted practice of making public art, performing and educating about ecological issues, highlights the role of art in regards to problem solving and taking action to improve our relationship with our natural surroundings. As a result of viewing and participating in her aesthetic world, we formulate a deeper and more fulfilling understanding of environmental issues that affect our city. We also develop the passion and rationale to make ethical and informed decisions in response to these issues.

In an episode on the podcast Stories Your Granny Never Told, Piña Trachtenburg whimsically describes her practice as a “pigeon religion.” While she was half joking (listen to the podcast episode to learn the context behind this remark), it does feel like she is creating both a sanctuary and doctrine for the moral and compassionate treatment of her feathered friends, and all living things by extension. By forming a humane relationship with pigeons, Piña Trachtenburg has made strides that benefit the social, emotional and physical wellbeing of avian and human alike.

In her recent pandemic-era outstallations, a hand painted sign reads “run for your lives! Humans are spreading disease.” A clear statement that humankind’s actions have direct implications on natural disasters, such as pandemics, which can be linked to our collective contributions to climate change (see: Coronavirus and Climate Change).

Art has a foundational role in spreading awareness and eliciting strong emotional responses around the poignancy of our current ecological crises. Prior works of art like Mel Chins’ Revival Fields (see: Activating Art and Education for Activism) and Michael Wang’s Extinct in New York (see: Back to Nature), stress the importance of protecting and nurturing our natural resources and habitats. They also signify how art and artistic thinking (using the habits of mind) can benefit natural and applied sciences. Piña Trachtenburg’s public facing art is accessible to even larger audiences because she exists in a realm outside of the traditional art or science industries. Her decision to work solely within a heavily trafficked plaza, ensures that people of all walks of life will interact with her eye-catching work.

From the public’s inquiries, discourses and responses to Piña Trachtenburg’s pigeon-centered outstallations, there are reasons for optimism around tangible social, cultural and environmental change. Taking heed of the environmentally conscious messages of ecological artworks might inspire significant emotional responses and further explorations, insights and actions that have positive implications on our relationship to our natural world. It has certainly transformed the moral and ethical choices in my life, especially how I consume and also produce within a materials based art and educational practice. I also have a long-lasting interest in scientific discoveries and research because of art-centered initiatives around natural phenomena, and I would proudly proclaim to be a convert of the pigeon religion.

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Why Are There So Many Pigeons?

by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 30, 2021 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Doves, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control

They peck at the pavement; they coo overhead; they swoop in hundreds across town squares: Pigeons have become such a permanent fixture in our urban landscapes that cities would seem oddly vacant without them.

But while many people harbor resentment for these ubiquitous creatures — labeling them “rats with wings” — few of us stop to ponder how pigeons became so numerous in the first place, and what our own role in their urban colonization might be.

Today, in fact, there are more than 400 million pigeons worldwide, most of which live in cities. But that wasn’t always the case. The city pigeons we know today are actually descended from a wild creature known as the rock dove (Columba livia): As its name suggests, this bird prefers a rocky coastal cliff habitat to the conveniences of city life. [Why Are Chickens So Bad at Flying?]

But going as far back as 10,000 years ago, written and fossil records show that people living in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and Egypt began coaxing these doves with food into human-inhabited areas, encouraging them to roost and breed on their land. “Back then, we brought rock doves into cities to eat as livestock,” Steve Portugal, a comparative ecophysiologist who studies bird flight and behavior, told Live Science. The plump, young birds especially — known as “squabs” — became a prized source of protein and fat. People then began domesticating and breeding the birds for food, creating subspecies that led to the diversity of urban pigeons known today.

Along the way, humans began to realize that pigeons were useful for much more than their meat. As the birds grew more popular in the Middle East, North Africa and Western Europe in the ensuing centuries, people began to tap into their innate talent for navigation — the same skill that makes homing pigeons famous today. Ancient records show that Mediterranean sailors used the birds to point floundering ships toward land. In cities, they became increasingly valuable as airborne messengers that could deliver important information across large distances.

From there, humanity’s appreciation for the animals only grew: Although pigeons were initially domesticated as a food source, “as other poultry became more popular, pigeons fell out of favor for eating and people began breeding them as a hobby,” said Elizabeth Carlen, a doctoral student at Fordham University in New York City who studies the evolution of urban pigeons.

By the 1600s, rock doves — non-native to the United States — had reached North America, transported by ships in the thousands. Rather than being a food source, it’s most likely that the birds were brought across from Europe to satiate the growing pigeon-breeding trend among hobbyists, said Michael Habib, a paleontologist in the Dinosaur Institute at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, and the University of Southern California.

Inevitably, birds escaped captivity, and began to breed freely in American cities. “We created this novel [urban] habitat and then we basically engineered an animal that does very well in that novel habitat,” Habib told Live Science. “They were successful in cities because we engineered them to be comfortable living around humans.” [Do Birds Really Abandon Their Chicks If Humans Touch Them?]

Cities became the perfect backdrop for the pioneering pigeons’ success. “Pigeons are naturally cliff-dwellers and tall buildings do a pretty great job at mimicking cliffs,” Carlen told Live Science. “Ornate facing, window sills and air-conditioning units provide fantastic perches for pigeons, similar to the crevices found on the side of a cliff.”

Another trait that makes pigeons more adaptable is their appetite. While other bird species have to rely on supplies of berries, seeds and insects, pigeons can eat just about anything that humans toss in the trash. “Other species are specialists and pigeons are the ultimate generalists,” Portugal said. “And the food is endless: I don’t think too many pigeons go to bed hungry!”

The pigeon’s unusual breeding biology seals the deal: Both parents rear their chicks on a diet of special protein- and fat-rich milk produced in a throat pouch called the crop. So, instead of having to rely on insects, worms and seeds to keep their young alive — resources that would be scarcer in cities — pigeons can provide for their offspring no matter what, Portugal says: “As long as the adults can eat, they can feed their babies, too.”

All these traits give pigeons a competitive edge compared with other species that might attempt survival in cities. Combined with the pigeon’s prolific breeding habits (parents can produce up to 10 chicks a year), it’s easy to see why these birds have become so populous around the world.

Not everyone appreciates the urban phenomenon that these birds have become — hence the “rat with wings” moniker. That’s understandable to some extent: Pigeons can spread diseases, and the mounds of guano they splatter across buildings can be cumbersome and costly to clean.

Despite this, Portugal sees a benefit to their presence in our urban environments. “They’re actually one of the few bits of wildlife that people get to interact with in cities now,” he said. What’s more, “they’re super-adaptable and super-successful; they’re the ultimate survivors. Actually, we can learn a lot from them.”

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Habit and Habitat of Pigeon

by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 30, 2021 | history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings

The Blue Rock Pigeon lives in perfect freedom in ledges, fissures and holes of rocks, forts, old buildings and side walls of wells. It prefers to live in those places of towns and cities which have plenty of coarse grains. Thus, their favourite resorts include big buildings, godowns, grain markets, temples, mosques, churches, tombs, railway stations and office buildings. They never nest on trees.

Nature:

The pigeons are inoffensive, harmless, timid and gregarious birds. During breeding season solitary couples make a simple, flat and artless nest of small sticks and thin roots, etc., at all sorts of places where there is some shelter from rain and sun. The eggs are laid in these nests and further development also occurs there. During winter, the pigeons collect into flocks which may be composed of several hundred individuals.

Food and Feeding:

The pigeons are vegetarians, feeding on grains, pulses, seeds of fruits and grasses. Sometimes they feed on insects, snails and slugs probably mistaken for seeds. They regularly leave their places of retreats and settlings during mornings and evenings, and collect into flocks to plunder the nearby fields.

Locomotion:

The pigeons are provided with long powerful wings which are well adapted for swift and strong flight. They walk on their two legs and such kind of walking is called bipedal gait. They walk on ground in search of food with great rapidity. When startled, they rise suddenly by striking the ground with their wings producing a crackling sound.

Sound:

The pigeons do not sing, chirp or screech but produce a characteristic sound which resembles the syllables gootur-goon, gootur-goon.

Family Life:

They lead a monogamous life, i.e., one male lives and copulates with only one female throughout the life.

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Reproduction and Incubation:

The internal fertilisation is performed by copulation in which temporary union of male and female takes place at their cloacal ends, i.e., cloacae of the two oppose each other, and transfer of sperms occurs directly into the urodaeum of female. The pigeons are oviparous, the eggs are laid in the nest and are incubated by the warmth of the parent’s body and hatching occurs after a fortnight.

Parental Care:

The newly hatched youngs are immature, helpless and featherless and are nourished by both parents by a fatty, curdy secretion, the pigeon’s milk, which is secreted in their crop. The parental care and homing instinct are well developed in pigeons.

Distribution:

The Blue Rock Pigeons are widely distributed in Palaearctic (Europe) and Oriental regions (Asia) and North Africa. They are especially plentiful in Palestine city of Israel. In India, two subspecies of Columba livia are namely, Columba livia neglecta is found up to 13,000 feet on the Himalaya.

Another Columba livia intermedia is smaller and darker race, which occurs throughout India. The Indian wild pigeon differs from that of European in having the rump or lower part of the back ash-coloured, while Indian pigeon is white.

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Long-extinct passenger pigeon finds a place in the family tree

by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 23, 2021 | history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings

With bits of DNA extracted from century-old museum specimens, researchers have found a place for the extinct passenger pigeon in the family tree of pigeons and doves, identifying for the first time this unique bird’s closest living avian relatives.

The new analysis, which appears this month in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, reveals that the passenger pigeon was most closely related to other North and South American pigeons, and not to the mourning dove, as was once suspected.

Naturalists have long lamented that one of North America’s most spectacular birds was also one of the first to be driven to extinction. In the early 1800s it was the most abundant bird species on the planet, even though its range was limited to the eastern and central forests of the United States and parts of eastern Canada. Flocks of passenger pigeons were so vast they darkened the sky; it could take days for a flock to pass overhead.

“It must have been unbelievable to see one of these flocks,” said Kevin Johnson, an ornithologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey at the University of Illinois and lead author of the study. “There is nothing in modern times that we can compare it to. The passenger pigeon was very nomadic and it formed these huge flocks, in the millions, and breeding colonies in the millions.”

Passenger pigeons followed their food, settling down in forests that periodically produced a superabundance of acorns and chestnuts. The pigeons nested in dense colonies covering hundreds of acres. This made them easy targets for human predators.

Intensive hunting of the pigeons in the mid-to-late 19th century disrupted their ability to breed, Johnson said. That and habitat destruction led to the bird’s eventual extinction. (The last of her kind, a passenger pigeon named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.)

To find the passenger pigeon’s place in the evolutionary history of pigeons and doves, Johnson and his colleagues compared sequences from two of its mitochondrial genes with those of 78 species of pigeons and doves from around the world. (There are more than 300 species of pigeons and doves worldwide.)

“We had two sequences from the mitochondrial genome, which is a separate organelle in the cell that has its own genome,” Johnson said. Mitochondrial genes are plentiful and so are easier to sequence, he said. And the mitochondrial genome evolves more rapidly than the nuclear genome, making it a good target for evolutionary studies.

The researchers first analyzed the available sequence data for all (extant and extinct) pigeons and doves together. Then they focused only on the living species, for which much more genetic information is available. They built a family tree of all living pigeons and doves, and then compared the available gene sequences of the passenger pigeon to those of its relatives to find its place in that tree. Both approaches placed the passenger pigeon on the same place in the tree.

Prior to this study, some believed that the passenger pigeon was most closely related to the mourning dove, a smaller species that also has a relatively long tail, Johnson said.

“But it turns out, based on the DNA, that it’s actually related to the New World big pigeons in a totally different genus,” he said.

The band-tailed pigeon, Patagioenas fasciata, which lives in the western mountainous regions of North and South America, was the passenger pigeon’s geographically nearest relative. Other members of this genus are found in forests in parts of Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean.

The passenger pigeon was fairly distinct from its relatives, however, as it belonged to a separate genus, Ectopistes, Johnson said.

“The passenger pigeon is in a monotypic genus, which means there is only one species in that genus: Ectopistes migratorius,” he said. “This bird is pretty diverged from its nearest relatives, meaning it had a unique place in the world. It represented a unique lineage that’s now gone.”

The study team included Dale Clayton, of the University of Utah; John Dumbacher of the California Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute; and Robert Fleischer, of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

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Wartime hero pigeon Paddy honoured with fly-past

by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 23, 2021 | Columbidae, Doves, history of pigeons, MBCA, pet bird

One of Northern Ireland’s smallest World War II heroes has been honoured.

Paddy, a messenger pigeon who served with the RAF during the Normandy operations in June 1944, was remembered in his home town of Larne on Friday.

PDSA, Britain’s biggest veterinary charity, awarded Paddy the Dickin Medal, dubbed the animals’ “Victoria Cross”, 65 years ago this month.

He received it for being the fastest pigeon to reach England with a coded message from the battle-front beaches of Normandy.

The brave bird brought back vital information about the Allies’ progress, flying 230 miles in four hours 50 minutes – the fastest time of any of the messenger pigeons involved in the mission with an average speed of 56mph.

PDSA spokesman James Puxty said: “Paddy’s contribution to the D-Day operations was a credit to the thousands of messenger pigeons donated by the racing pigeon fraternity for service during World War II.

“He was one of 32 brave, feathered heroes that received the PDSA Dickin Medal for their life-saving flights during the war, and the only recipient from Northern Ireland.”

Local hero

Paddy was born and raised in Carnlough and joined thousands of other racing birds who were trained and drafted to RAF Hurn in Hampshire for military service.

Impressing military brass with his flying in the Air-Sea rescue units he was seconded to the United States First Army for undercover missions during the Normandy Landings.

In the face of poor weather conditions and the threat of German falcons, deployed to intercept Paddy and his comrades, he delivered his message to his home loft at RAF Hurn.

After the war Paddy returned to Carnlough and lived out his days with his owner Captain Andrew Hughes, until his death in 1954.

A memorial to the winged hero was erected in Carnlough harbour.

A feathered fly-past of pigeons formed part of the Paddy Memorial Day event held at Larne Museum and Arts Centre.

Larne Borough Council and the town’s historical society were joined by guests from PDSA and the owner of Paddy’s PDSA Dickin Medal, former Irish Army officer Kevin Spring.

Younger guests were entertained by Gail Seekamp, the children’s author, who read from her book “Paddy the Pigeon”.

The Dickin Medal was introduced in 1943 by Maria Dickin, PDSA’s founder. She wanted to recognise the gallantry and devotion to duty of animals serving with the Armed Forces and Civil Defence units during WWII.

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Airborne pigeons obey the pecking order

by Pigeon Patrol | Nov 16, 2021 | Bird Netting, Bird Spikes, Columbidae, Doves, history of pigeons, MBCA

During flight, pigeons in a flock follow the leader.

Pigeons wearing miniature backpacks containing tracking devices have revealed that the birds rapidly shift direction during flight in response to cues from the leading members of their group.

“It is the first study demonstrating hierarchical decision-making in a group of free-flying birds,” says Tamás Vicsek, a biophysicist at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest who led the study, which is published today in Nature¹.

The discovery became possible only recently with the introduction of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices that can collect data at a high rate: five times per second. Vicsek’s team strapped lightweight GPS devices to individual pigeons and tracked flocks of up to 10 birds during free flights lasting around 12 minutes and 15-kilometre homing flights. In total, the GPS logged 32 hours of data and captured 15 group flights. The researchers couldn’t pinpoint individuals’ exact positions within a flock, but were able to accurately compare birds’ directions of motion.

Within flocks, the authors looked first at the behaviour of pairs of birds. For each possible pairing, the team identified a leader — the bird that changed direction first — and a follower, which copied the leader’s motion. Followers reacted very quickly, within a fraction of a second.

Next, the scientists constructed a network of relationships among birds in the group during each flight. They uncovered a robust pecking order: birds higher up the ranks had more influence over the group’s movements, and each individual’s level of influence was consistent across specific free and homing flights.

However, this influence was not always consistent between flights, with some rearrangement occurring among birds at the head of the flock. Vicsek speculates that this may have occurred because an original leader had tired. Co-author Dora Biro, an animal behaviour expert at the University of Oxford, UK, says, “This kind of group decision-making is more complicated than previous models suggested.”

Follow the leader

Although pigeons have an almost 340º field of view, the researchers found that the birds at the front of a flock tended to make the navigational decisions. Moreover, birds responded more readily to a leader’s movements if the leader was on their left side. These findings concur with previous work that indicated that social cues entering a bird’s left eye receive preferential processing in the brain².

“No other study has contributed more to our understanding of collective decision-making in actively homing animals, not by a long shot,” says Todd Dennis, an expert in pigeon navigation at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He likens the birds’ group behaviour to that of a cabaret dance troupe, in which less-experienced dancers towards the rear correct themselves by watching experts at the front. “The study provides a very important model for how collective behaviour and leadership can be assessed in a range of animal groups,” he says.

The authors say that a hierarchical arrangement may foster more flexible and efficient decision-making compared with that of singly led or egalitarian groups. In future studies, the scientists plan to investigate whether leaders are better navigators, and whether hierarchies persist in larger groups and in other types of social animal. “If it’s true that there’s an evolutionary advantage to making decisions in this way, then there’s absolutely a reason to assume that it could have evolved in other species too,” Biro says.

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Pigeon Religion: Street Smarts via the Birds

Why Are There So Many Pigeons?

Habit and Habitat of Pigeon

Long-extinct passenger pigeon finds a place in the family tree

Wartime hero pigeon Paddy honoured with fly-past

Local hero

Airborne pigeons obey the pecking order

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