They are everywhere in every city pooping on our statues and ledges; they're eating
trash, they're annoying rats with wings, squabs, sky rats… or just, ugh get out of my way
BIRD.
I'm going to ruin every pretty bird-releasing ceremony you've ever seen; they're releasing
sky rats.
Pigeons are part of the Family: Columbidae and within it there are over 300 species;
including both pigeons and doves!
The names are used interchangeably!
These birds are so successful they've spread across the entire planet (except the Sahara,
Antarctic and high Arctic).
The first mention of them pigeons appeared in Mesopotamia.
Ancient humans eventually domesticated them and kept them for food, just like the chicken.
Because of their monogamy and two-parent family units, the dove and pigeon were used in religious
ceremonies and to represent deities like Ishtar, Venus, the Holy Spirit, or Aphrodite.
Once they'd been domesticated, we learned homing pigeons could be used in bird races
or to carry messages.
Europeans brought the rock pigeon with them to North America where it interbred with the
native pigeon and spread EVERYWHERE.
That native was the famous Passenger pigeon.
They were likely the most numerous bird in the world in the 1800s -- with 136 million
breeding adults in one site in Wisconsin alone -- adding up to BILLIONS over the whole country.
Accounts by Native Americans and European naturalists say the sky could to turn dark
for hours while these birds migrated.
Of course, now the passengers are all extinct from our hunting and feeding practices, thanks
humans.
The Rock pigeon we still see in our cities carries some of its DNA, but it's mainly a
feral mix of the original European rock pigeon variety.
These birds are still good for racing and speed.
They're adept fliers and evade predators even in New York City; which is why you rarely
see dead ones.
Yes, stray cats get them, but so do the owls, falcons and hawks that live in Eastern and
Midwest cities looking for the tasty, juicy, birds; which breed year-round.
Even we eat them!
If you see squab on a menu, that's pigeon, friends.
So after learning all about them, I now want to put pigeons forth as a superbird.
THESE THINGS ARE CRAZY COOL.
For example, pigeon navigation isn't well understood, but a 2013 paper in the Journal
of Experimental Biology posits it has to do with infrasound, or extreme low frequency
sound waves generated by the ocean and reverberating through our planet.
Using these pervasive sounds, the researchers believe, pigeons can make a mental map of
their surroundings and find their way home.
And, this month, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explored
this superbird, finding their flying is some of the best in the bird world.
They can avoid cars and predators and when captured with high speed cameras they found
the simple pigeon could hold their wings up to slide through small spaces; OR they can
tuck them in to barrel through holes and protect their body in case of miscalculation.
During his research into the "Origin of Species," Darwin studied and bred pigeons, exploring
their variations and adaptations through selective breeding.
Today, researchers at the University of Utah are doing the same with genome sequencing;
probing how they contain such diversity!
Mourning doves, Jacobin, passenger, Red Capuchin, King pigeons, rock pigeons... (that's the
one you see in the city); they're all closely related.
If we bred them like we do dogs we'd see AMAZING colors and patterns.
Pigeons are frickin' awesome.
When I started researching this piece, I was seriously calling them skyrats.
But not anymore.
Superbirds all the way.
But what do you think?
You gonna look at these little birds differently now?
Something else people spend a lot of time ignoring is abandoned buildings, but I love
them.
These neglected places aren't just ruins waiting to fall down, but pieces of our history!
They're important to understanding how we got here.
So, in this new show Abandonment Issues I go explore them.
You can click on the link in the description to watch and subscribe.
It's the first episode, but there's more to come!
Tell me what you think!