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Pigeons Are Secretly Brilliant Birds That Understand Space and Time, Study Finds

by Pigeon Patrol | Aug 3, 2021 | pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators

Of all the birds in the world, the pigeon draws the most ire. Despite their reputation as brainless “rats with wings,” though, they’re actually pretty brilliant (and beautiful) animals. A new study adds more evidence that the family of birds known as pigeons are some of the smartest birds around, as Quartz alerts us.

In addition to being able to distinguish English vocabulary from nonsense words, spot cancer, and tell a Monet from a Picasso, pigeons can understand abstract concepts like space and time, according to the new study published in Current Biology. Their brains just do it in a slightly different way than humans’ do.

Researchers at the University of Iowa set up an experiment where they showed pigeons a computer screen featuring a static horizontal line. The birds were supposed to evaluate the length of the line (either 6 centimeters or 24 centimeters) or the amount of time they saw it (either 2 or 8 seconds). The birds perceived “the longer lines to have longer duration, and lines longer in duration to also be longer in length,” according to a press release. This suggests that the concepts are processed in the same region of the brain—as they are in the brains of humans and other primates.

But that abstract thinking doesn’t occur in the same way in bird brains as it does in ours. In humans, perceiving space and time is linked to a region of the brain called the parietal cortex, which the pigeon brains lack entirely. So their brains have to have some other way of processing the concepts.

The study didn’t determine how, exactly, pigeons achieve this cognitive feat, but it’s clear that some other aspect of the central nervous system must be controlling it. That also opens up the possibility that other non-mammal animals can perceive space and time, too, expanding how we think of other animals’ cognitive capabilities.

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How Pigeons Became Rats: The Cultural-Spatial Logic of Problem Animals

by Pigeon Patrol | Aug 3, 2021 | Bird Spike, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News

How do animals become problems? Drawing on interactionist theories of social problems and cultural geography, I argue that the construction of animals as problems relies upon cultural understandings of nature/ culture relationships, which in turn entail “imaginative geographies.” Specifically, modernity posits a firm boundary between nature and culture. Animals have their place, but are experienced as “out of place”-and often problematic-when they are perceived to transgress spaces designated for human habitation. Relying on New York Times articles from 1851 to 2006, and articles from 51 other newspapers from 1980 to 2006, this article focuses on the process by which pigeons as a species were problematized. I contend that pigeons have come to represent the antithesis of the ideal metropolis, which is orderly and sanitized, with nature subdued and compartmentalized. While typified as a health issue, the pigeon’s primary “offense” is that it “pollutes” habitats dedicated for human use. The catch phrase “rats with wings” neatly summarizes society’s evaluations of, and anxieties about, this bird. This metaphor reflects a framing of pigeons by claims-makers that renders them out of place in the cityscape. This study expands social problems theorizing to more thoroughly account for animals and the role of space.

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WHAT TO DO WITH PIGEON GEESE?

by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 27, 2021 | Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News, Raccoons

While most Canada Geese spend the spring and fall migrating back and forth between their winter and summer habitat, some sub-populations of the Canada Goose have sprung up in many urban and suburban areas, living there year-round. In many cities they have become quite the pest – hanging around popular areas, hissing at children, and leaving their infamous waste seemingly everywhere.

Our Senior Scientist Dr. Jeff Wells spoke with host Marc Montgomery on Radio Canada International’s The Link, a daily show that covers a wide range of news stories. Dr. Wells explains how these, as he likes to call them, “pigeon geese” came to be and how they are different from wild migratory geese. He also weighs in on New York City’s plans to kill hundreds, if not thousands of them, and ways to make good out of unfortunate situations…

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Homing Pigeons are Forgetful Too

by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 27, 2021 | Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Law, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators

If it makes you feel any better, humans aren’t the only animals that forget things. Researchers have found that homing pigeons do the same. The new findings, they add, suggest an underlying continuity across the human and animal world in how the brain works.

The knack of remembering and forgetting is the brain’s way of filtering information to manage its limited storage capacity. For example, you briefly store information about trees and cars around you in your working memory, but if someone tells you to focus on a speeding truck, your brain uses a process called executive control to remember that object longer. Meanwhile, you forget the others. In humans, this filtering is performed by the prefrontal cortex.

To test whether the avian brain has a similar filtering mechanism, Michael Colombo, a neuroscientist at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and colleagues subjected homing pigeons to a memory test. First, the researchers trained the birds to know that a high tone means they should remember an object, while a low tone means they can forget it. They then showed the birds one of two shapes (circles or dots) or colors (blue and green). After a bird pecked three times at the image, the researchers sounded a tone. Birds that heard the remember cue fired up neurons in a region of their brain analogous to the human prefrontal cortex (as measured via implanted electrodes), Colombo’s team reports today in PLos Biology. And those birds did, in fact, remember the objects: 79% of the time, they correctly pecked at the original object again when shown multiple images 3 seconds later. In contrast, birds that heard the forget cue did not exhibit sustained activation of the same brain area, and only in about 44% of cases did the birds correctly identify the original object. Thus, the researchers argue the birds use a similar mechanism as humans to filter their memories.

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Birmingham pigeon fanciers inspire play

by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 27, 2021 | pet bird, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators

Pigeon fanciers in Birmingham have provided the inspiration for a new play, which the team behind it plan to stage at a city pigeon loft.

The play is written by Mandy Ross and based on an idea by Alex Lockett.

Artist and curator Alex Lockett said the play has developed from a project to chronicle the lives and stories behind a hidden passion in the city.

She said she had become “hooked” herself a little more than four years ago.

“Project Pigeon started as an arts event. I went along to a pigeon club and all these guys were telling me some amazing stories,” she said.

“I went from knowing nothing to keeping about 50 or 60 birds in a loft in Digbeth.”

Pigeons on trains

In January of this year Project Pigeon was awarded a £43,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to compile an archive of pigeon fancying in the city.

More than 30 audio interviews and a dozen videos later the archive is almost complete.

It is due to be handed over to Birmingham Library next year, with some of the stories also going to Bletchley Park’s Animals at War exhibition.

Ms Lockett said pigeon fancying had become more popular in the West Midlands than any other region in the country, with its popularity in Birmingham driven by industrialisation and the development of the railways.

“People would take their pigeons down to New Street Station or Snow Hill and let them travel north or south.

“The railway stationmaster would later release them and the baskets would be sent back with the time of release attached to them. That happened right up until the 1960s.”

Today some of the best racing birds can be worth thousands of pounds.

Birmingham Roller

Ms Lockett said people were still passionate about the sport in the city but she had feared some of its social history might be lost.

“One guy had tables of every club race result from the last 30 years. You could see sons following fathers and the same names appearing at the bottom of the results.”

The city has even given its name to a breed of pigeon, known as the Birmingham Roller, bred not for speed but for its ability to perform somersaults in the air.

Fans of the bird include ex heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, who has in the past bought birds from Birmingham and Wolverhampton breeders, in a bid to find a genuine Roller, Ms Lockett said.

Stories unearthed by Project Pigeon include that of Betty and Bernard Hemming who met and later married after Bernard struck up a friendship with her brother, a fellow pigeon fancier.

A murkier world was also revealed when one contributor revealed he had stolen a bird from a neighbour as a child and dyed it purple to prevent it being recognised.

The play, performed by Rogue Play Theatre, is due to be staged at Project Pigeon’s loft in Digbeth in April. A book is also being written and a series of radio plays, based on the interviews, are expected to be broadcast in February.

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Wartime hero pigeon Paddy honoured with fly-past

by Pigeon Patrol | Jul 19, 2021 | Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Predators, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons, Pigeons in the News

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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Pigeons Are Secretly Brilliant Birds That Understand Space and Time, Study Finds

How Pigeons Became Rats: The Cultural-Spatial Logic of Problem Animals

WHAT TO DO WITH PIGEON GEESE?

Homing Pigeons are Forgetful Too

Birmingham pigeon fanciers inspire play

Pigeons on trains

Birmingham Roller

Wartime hero pigeon Paddy honoured with fly-past

Local hero

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