There are a few things Elmo is afraid of. In order of the most scary thing:

1. Hats and helmets – he’s scared of anyone wearing a hat or helmet.
2. Vacuum cleaner – but then again, who isn’t?
3. Feathers – yes, Elmo is in fact afraid of any feathers lying about, and will peck at them vigorously to make them go away. However, if we hand him a feather he will most likely take it to his nest as bedding.

Other people have told me that their pigeons are afraid of sunglasses and towels on heads. What about yours?

Things Elmo likes to attack:

1. Toys
2. Pens
3. My toes
4. My hands

Bizarrely, Elmo loves my heels! He’ll coo to them romantically and do a little dance, however, if I show him my toes, he’ll attack them.

In January, 2010, I posted the following:

Elmo likes to sleep a lot. He’s at that age (coming up to 12 years old this year) that he nods off at any opportunity (in between chasing toes and attacking toys – tiring stuff that is!). So this week I’ve caught Elmo taking a nap in various locations. It seems he’s trying to find the perfect spot.

First I found him on the fluffy mat:

Then next to the window:

And today I caught Elmo taking a nap next to Georgie’s nest, the silly boy:

Georgie is sitting on (infertile) eggs again (she laid a new pair this week) and for some reason Elmo decided to sleep near her. I have no idea why since he hates Georgie. And as you can imagine, Georgie was not impressed with the close proximity. She’s very protective over her eggs and doesn’t like to be disturbed. So she quickly told Elmo off:

I often get asked what many might view as a simple question:

“How can you tell if a pigeon is male or female?”

Telling the sex of a pigeon is actually quite difficult. Even with years of experience people can still get it wrong. However, there are two methods that give good results.

One is to have the bird DNA sexed (from blood, feathers or the eggshell), which I believe is a safer and less intrusive option than surgical sexing. For more about DNA sexing please visit these websites: http://www.avianbiotech.co.uk/dna_sex_testing.asp and http://www.dnasexing.com/index.html

The other method is even less intrusive: Simply wait to see if your pigeon lays an egg!

I’ve had a look through the few books I have about pigeons and found this about sexing fancy pigeons (not ferals):

“Sexing young birds with any certainty is 50-50 at best. … Older birds of some breeds can be more reliably sexed, once you gain a little experience. In most breeds, the male’s head is fairly round, but the top of the hen’s skull will typically have a flattened area. In some birds this can be quite pronounced, but again, this is not true in all breeds. The only surefire way to tell a bird’s sex is obvious – the one that lays the egg is the hen, for sure!” (Vriends and Erskine, 2005, page 11 and 14)

“With pigeons the difference between males (cocks) and females (hens) is difficult to see. Sometimes the cocks are a little bit rougher around the edges and a little heavier. The head also offers some clues when trying to determine the gender. This however does depend on breed. The real difference can only be determined through their behaviour. A cock only shows that he is a male when he becomes an adult.” (Rijs, 2006, page 48)

Many people will tell you their method of sexing pigeons is the way to go, such as checking the shape of the head, tipping the bird onto its back (please check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I4iU4KTJRo), checking the length of the toes, etc., however, I believe that there is no real science behind those methods and you may get an incorrect answer. This is obviously bad if you’re trying to buy a mate for your single pigeon.

Generally speaking male pigeons behave differently than females. When they become sexually mature they’ll start to look for a mate. Hinsaw Patent (1997, page 39-38) has this to say about feral pigeons in the city: “Almost any time a flock of pigeons walks about on the sidewalk pecking up bits of food, at least one male bird will be trying to impress a female. He puffs out his neck feathers so they gleam in the sunlight, and he coos softly as he struts about. The females are just as likely to ignore him as to pay attention.” Sound familiar?

Males will do their strutting dance to females, so if you see the dance, it’s usually a male pigeon. For illustrations and videos of the courtship dance, please visit: Pigeon courtship – romance is alive!

However, just to confuse you, I have found that tame/imprinted female pigeons will behave like males towards humans. So you may think you have a tame male pigeon who is cooing to you and dancing about, but in fact it may be a female pigeon who’s trying to get your attention. And since you’re obviously not giving her the right pigeon mate signals, she’s taking on the male role to ensure the relationship is going ahead.

If you have a tame pet pigeon who thinks you’re his or her mate, they will soon want to mate with you and, if they’re female, lay eggs. From my experience with tame pigeons, if the pigeon mates with your hand or an object (by rubbing its vent against you or the desired object) then the pigeon is male. If, when you pat its back, the pigeon crouches down and presents its vent to you (flattening its back and moving its feathers away from the vent) then you have a female pigeon.

Example of female presenting (0:08 and 0:34):

Example of male mating (Elmo isn’t too good with his balance so he cannot actually rub his vent against us – which is good for us!):

And of two pigeons mating (0:29):

Did you notice the male pigeon crouch down (0:42) when the female was walking towards him as if he was presenting himself? Interesting behaviour from a male.

The topic of sexing pigeons is discussed at length in this forum: http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f5/can-you-tell-male-from-female-5146.html

And the wonderful people at Pigeon Angels suggest presenting a mirror to the pigeon to see if they coo and dance to it (male) or if they ignore the mirror (female): http://www.pigeonangels.com/t2254-how-do-i-tell-the-sex-of-my-pigeons

I’ve not tried the mirror method with my pet pigeon, Georgie, because she cannot see properly anyway – and we know she’s female already because she lays eggs. Elmo ignores the mirror but we know he’s male, so you can take what you want from all of the sexing methods. If in doubt, DNA sexing is your best bet!

I love what this man has written about the subject – point three is excellent! – but I don’t suggest the first method at all:

.

REFERENCES:

• Vriends, M.M. and Erskine, T.E. (2005) Pigeons. A Complete Pet Owner’s Manual. Hauppauge: Barron’s
• Rijs, A. (2006) Fancy Pigeons. Prague: Rebo Publishers
• Hinshaw Patent, D. (1997) Pigeons. New York: Clarion Books

What a glorious day it has been today! Since the sun decided to make an appearance I quickly set up the run in the garden to give Georgie and Elmo a chance to be out in the sunshine.

And they loved it! It’s been a while since they’ve been outside and they enjoyed every opportunity to soak up some rays (the sun started to play peek-a-boo behind some clouds) and to peck at the grass and earth.

Pretty Georgie

Since both Elmo and Georgie are disabled and cannot fly properly, we put them in the run for their own safety (not at the same time otherwise Elmo would attack Georgie!). I also had Georgie on the grass outside of the run for a while (when it was Elmo’s turn in the run) and kept a very close eye on her in case she decided to flap into the air and be carried away by the wind.

Elmo is usually a bit scared in the garden but today he was a champ. He saw a bit of dirt and started pecking at it and then preened himself in the sun. He wasn’t bothered by anything.

Elmo pecking at the ground

Elmo in the run

I took a little video of Georgie but she wasn’t sure about the camera (you can see her backing away at the sound of the camera in the beginning and end of the video).

Georgie in the garden

We visited the zoo at Chessington World of Adventures today and were amused in seeing woodpigeons flying about, mingling freely with the captive animals (one woodpigeon was sorting through the ostriches straw bedding – possibly looking for suitable bits of straw to steal for nesting material).

Walking past a large enclosure that housed a big white bird I did a double-take. Something about the bird caught my attention. My “pigeon sense” was tingling.

The large white bird was a Pied Imperial Pigeon (Ducula bicolor).

Pied Imperial Pigeon

We sadly couldn’t get a better photo of the pigeon (you can just about see it on the branch), however, these websites will give you more information and photos on the beautiful pigeon, which is a frugivore (fruit eater)!

• Avian Web: http://www.avianweb.com/piedimperialpigeons.html
• BirdLife International: http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=2743
• Paradise Earth: http://www.paradiseearth.com/Bird%20Articles/Pied%20Imperial%20Pigeon.html

And here are two videos of the pigeons (from two different zoos):

Isn’t it always the case when visiting zoos or other animal collections – the wild pigeons or fancy ones catch our eyes first! (Such as when we visited Porfell Wildlife Park & Sanctuary in Cornwall: Star attraction!)

We saw some other lovely creatures at Chessington Zoo, such as this handsome ostrich:

This plucky chicken (I want one!):

These adorable meerkats:

And our highlight of the day, Harley the sealion:

Rev receives a kiss

Harley gives Richard a hug!

I find it almost unbearable to listen to a single male pigeon coo desperately for a mate. It tugs at my heart. I must find the pigeon a mate!

In the resident pigeon aviary at work there are two single males and one single female pigeon. The female, Birdie, is not interested in pigeons at all, only humans, so she pretty much ignores the single males who were desperate to mate with her when she first arrived.

Button, one of the single boys, has been quite patient in his wait for a mate, but Davey boy, the other single boy, has been cooing and dancing every day in his attempt to attract a mate – or rather, to steal a mate from the other males.

So when two racing pigeons arrived at work in need of a home my hopes were raised that they were female. One laid an egg shortly after arriving, so she is obviously female. But we’re still not sure about the other one. Only one way to find out: Mix them with the others and see what happens!!

But let me tell you first about the confirmed female racing pigeon, whom I’ve named Davina.

Davina

She was brought to my work because of the “mess” she and her feral pigeon mate was making on a couple’s property. She hadn’t flown home after a race and had taken up residency in Kent with her new mate. The couple caught her and took her to Devon where they released her, hoping she would fly back to her original home. … She made it back to Kent before them. … For fear that something bad may happen to Davina if we released her, we made the decision to try her in Dora’s and Pidge’s aviary. Davina is a lovely blue bar and immediately paired up with Button, much to poor Davey’s annoyance. He tried so hard to woo her but she only had eyes for Button. Button is naturally extremely happy with his beautiful mate.

Button (left) and his new mate, Davina (right).

The second racing pigeon arrived with a broken wing, which is actually locked down in position and the pigeon cannot lift it at all at the moment. I’ve given the pigeon a unisex name: Jules.

Jules

When Jules was put into Dora’s aviary Davey was ecstatic. Have a look:

I’m praying that Jules is female and that she falls madly in love with Davey. He so deserves it!

Here’s a list of all the current resident pigeons (fancy or disabled) at my work:

After yesterday’s egg laying drama (please read: Valentine present) Georgie is happy sitting on the egg in her own nest. I guess we’ll get a second one tomorrow, although last time Georgie only layed one egg.

I do end up missing Georgie’s company and attention when she’s incubating but I know that it’s probably better for her psychologically to go through the motions than to interrupt her broodiness. She’s such a sweetheart (and sometimes a real pain!) and every day I’m in awe of my pigeons. They are amazing creatures and although their continuous pooping can be a real pain in the backside sometimes, their love and affection towards us is so inspiring.

So far we have captured on video Georgie laying an egg three times. Last year she had layed one in Elmo’s nest, but that time he was on the floor so he didn’t know it.

Here are the videos:

Georgie gave us a Valentine’s present: an egg!

We knew one was imminent from her behaviour (nesting and mating displays), dropping consistency (very loose) and body posture (arched lower body and tail feathers), however, her decision on where she wanted to lay the egg took us by surprise.

At around 8pm Georgie raced across the sofa from her end, climbed over Richard, and jumped onto Elmo’s nest with him still in it!! We quickly removed her before Elmo attacked her and placed her in her nest, however, she had made up her mind and wasn’t going to change it! Georgie raced across again to Elmo’s nest, so this time Richard covered Elmo so he couldn’t see her, and Georgie settled down next to Elmo and laid her egg.

Georgie (right) with Elmo (left) in his nest.

Georgie lays her egg! Elmo has a look to see what's happening.

After Georgie had laid her egg (which is infertile, by the way) we placed her and her egg in her nest but unfortunately Georgie doesn’t recognise it as her own and is trying to get back to Elmo’s nest. Oh dear. Elmo is keeping her at bay with threatening pecks but I think I will have to take the egg away to stop Georgie from being too broody and to stop her harassing Elmo.

We caught the egg laying on video. The egg appears towards the end (2:27).

Late last year two fancy pigeons were brought to my work because they had been found in the wild unable to cope with being out of captivity (they had either escaped or been stupidly released). They came in separately, but once they were put in an aviary together they promptly fell in love.

One is a male West of England Tumbler and the other a female of unknown breed (possibly a mix. Any ideas?).

West of England Tumbler pigeon on the right

Unknown fancy breed on the left

They love each other!

We found them a forever home since the resident aviary at work is full, and the day I put them in their carrier to wait for their transporter was a loud one. As soon as the male Tumbler started cooing to his mate all the other pigeons in the Intensive Care Unit started cooing too. He also set off the baby pigeons we had in there. Just listen:

What darlings!!

Remember Davey pigeon’s foot injury? (See: Davey pigeon in care) Well, it healed up nicely, no infection or other complications, so we removed the stitches and put him back into Dora’s aviary. All the male pigeons came down to greet him and Davey got straight to work in establishing his territory after having been away for a week and a half.

Last week it was rather wet and windy so it was a relief to have Dora’s aviary cleaned and given dry bedding (the pigeons love fresh bedding. I love watching them pick up bits of straw to take to their nests). But of course it rained today so the aviary is a bit wet again. The pigeons don’t mind the rain to be honest (they do have shelter in the aviary). I often see them with their wings up to let the rain wash their “wing-pits”.

I went over to check for eggs to replace with fake ones and to do a quick visual check of all the pigeons in there. Everyone looked fine and healthy, which was of course a relief after the scare when Davey injured his foot.

I managed to take a few videos of Dora and the other pigeons for your viewing pleasure. As usual, Dora had fun attacking my fingers while her mate, Pidge, thought they were worthy recipients for mating.

Here’s a list of all the current resident pigeons (fancy or disabled) at my work: