O for the wings…

“…O for the wings, for the wings of a dove…” As the last verse of Mendelssohn’s ‘Hear my Prayer’ soars to the heavens… let me introduce you to the rock dove (Columba livia), or domestic pigeon, or feral pigeon, or… as one London Mayor once famously described the species, “rats with wings”.  Here is a fine example of a male, with a pumped-up collar of iridescent feathers.

The feral pigeon is the direct descendent of the rock dove, a bird with possibly the longest history of domestication of any bird, including the chicken.  It is, for example, recognisable in Iraqi art from 4500 BCE, suggesting the rock dove’s use as a ready source of food but also possibly for other purposes which we shall touch on later in this blog.  The ancestral rock dove can still be seen in the form of individuals with slate grey wings and two black stripes…

…although the modern pigeon now comes in a multiplicity of styles, from pure white to almost jet black…

The rock dove has adapted to city life so well because urban environments are rich in high places with a great many ledges, and high places with ledges are where rock doves feel most at home.  This is because their original natural home is this – Nature’s answer to the skyscraper.

Their natural neighbours on these sea-cliff ledges are puffins (Fratercula artica), razorbills (Alca torda), kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) and fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis)…

…but perhaps part of the attraction of city ledges is the absence of these noisy neighbours and particularly absence of the rather bossy ‘little monkish brother’ (‘fratercula’ in the scientific name of the puffin refers to its monastic appearance)…

The other attractions of urban cliffs, of course, are the constant supply of food and the relative warmth of cities compared to sea-cliff ledges constantly exposed to the rawest of elements.  This means that city pigeons can breed all year round, and breed they do.  The sheer numbers of pigeons and their love of ledges explains the ‘hedgehog-like’ look of so much street architecture on both campuses and around London generally.  Whoever invented these pigeon-deterrent spikes must be smiling all the way to the bank.

Love of ledges and a tendency to cover everything liberally with their droppings meant that pigeons almost fouled up (quite literally) the Nobel Prize-winning discovery that background microwave radiation – part of the hiss on an un-tuned radio – filled the universe and provided the first tangible evidence for the Big Bang.

‘Rats with wings’ they may be to some, but for others they have been angels of mercy.  For thousands of years the quite astonishing homing abilities of the pigeon have been used to convey messages at speeds few other methods of communication could rival.  A homing pigeon can sustain average speeds of over 50 m.p.h. for hundreds of miles, and can reach average speeds of more than 90 m.p.h. over shorter distances.  During both world wars, pigeons were used extensively by all sides as an often-more reliable means of communication than telephone wires that could be cut by shell-fire or radio transmissions which could be intercepted by the enemy.

Indeed, one of the most famous animal stories to emerge from World War 1 involved a messenger pigeon called ‘Cher Ami’.  In October 1918, a detachment of the American 77th Infantry Division became trapped between the German and Allied lines and found themselves coming under friendly artillery fire.  Repeated attempts to send messages back to the artillery all failed until a message was attached to the leg of Cher Ami.  It said: “We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heavens sake stop it.”  Cher Ami was released with the message and was immediately hit in the breast by enemy fire, also losing an eye and a leg.  Incredibly, she staggered into the air again, delivered the message and thus saved the lives of over 100 men.  A wooden leg was carved for her and she was taken back to the USA as a feted celebrity, along with her Croix de Guerre medal.

My own experience of pigeons came while I was still at school.  A nestling pigeon had fallen from the nest and was rescued from the jaws of a cat.  The obvious thing to do was to give it to Lindsay “because he knows all about Nature and that stuff,” so I was presented with this pigeon squab sitting in a shoebox.  A pigeon squab is one of the ugliest things on this Earth.  It is all grey reptilian skin and spiky yellow fluff sprouting at crazy angles.  We looked at each other and it was not love at first sight.  I took it home, and the shoebox with its raucous demanding inhabitant lived in my bedroom.

Now the unusual thing about pigeons is that the young are fed on milk – a special pigeon ‘milk’ produced in the gizzard of the parents.  This was not something I was capable of doing, so Pigeon (inspiration failed me when it came to naming) was fed on Co-Op milk – and to my amazement she thrived.  Cut to one year later, and Pigeon was a fine sleek rock dove flying free over the rooftops of Liverpool while I was at school, then roosting on the end of my bed at night.  In the morning, if she thought I had slept too long, she would walk up the bed, stand on my forehead and peck my eyelids.  A remarkably effective alarm clock…

So, when you see the pigeons roosting on a ledge above the DLR as the evenings draw in, just imagine to yourself what they are dreaming of.  Is it the feast of fragments in a discarded crisp packet, or the fallen crumbs from a brownie hastily eaten while you were simultaneously trying to drink a coffee in the dash to your next lecture, or might they instead be having strangely puzzling dreams – dreams of those ancestral sea-cliffs, dreams haunted by the cries of seabirds, dreams rich with the smell of salt-sea air…?

For further amazing facts about pigeons, see here

By Richard Lindsay