Pigeons

[Crackle]

The new brood are almost ready to fledge.
I am sure these 2 new squabs will be taking flying lessons from dad in the next few days.
   
Mum is sitting on the next batch of 2 eggs.
Sadly the original baby seems to have either flown off to pastures new or come a cropper somewhere as he has not been seen for over a week.

Mike

[Crackle]

Its been 4 days now since the grey baby pigeon fledged, but the white baby just does not seem to want to leave the pigeon house.
Dad has been calling to it from the roof tops nearby, but all to no avail.
The grey baby now only gets fed by dad as a reward when it flies up to the roof of our house.
It even seems like the white baby is not being fed any more when the parents return to the nest.

Dad has even resorted to grabbing the white baby by the scruff of the neck, in his beak, and trying to tip it off the edge of the bird house, he has not succeeded so far, except the white baby did for a short while manage to get onto the top of the bird house, and again dad tried to push him off, so the baby flapped and crawled back into the bird house.
I am starting to get a little concerned for the white baby.
I put the small water bowl into the bird house so they could all drink during the sweltering hot weather, as the white baby seemed not to be getting much pigeon milk.
Mike

[Crackle]

The white baby went for a little fly around various landing places in the garden today. Not very strong at flying at the moment but at least she has made an effort.
Mike

[Crackle]

The young white pigeon has now been flying up to the roof of our house and back and seems more at home at flying, so it looks like it will be OK.

Mike

[Crackle]

The concluding note to this account of pigeon life in our garden.
The adults have abandoned the nest when the latest batch of 2 eggs were due to hatch, and we later found when I removed the "house" from the bird table a recently hatched dead chick, the second egg was infertile, as it had a crack and when I examined it the contents just ran out.
I have now cleared out all the nest and muck, and put some felt over the disintegrating ply slats which I originally used to cover it.

Yesterday I had decided to stop any further nest building so I covered over the front of the bird house to prevent entry.
But in the evening I noticed this caused a degree of panic in the 2 fledged babies as they repeatedly swooped down from our roof and fluttered around trying to find their familiar roost for the night. So I removed the covering and they eventually settled down for the night in their old house.
The 2 young pigeons are still hanging around today, but the adults are not around at the moment.
I dont know why the adults abandoned the eggs and young chick, we observed them paying the occasional visit just to look, peck at something in the nest then fly off again.
It could be possible the nest had become infested with mites, or possibly the weather had just been too hot, I know the male adult had become very impatient with the white baby when it was slow to fledge.

Its been an educational and entertaining few months watching the pigeons work hard to make their new family.
Mike

[Crackle]

Here is a sequel to the story of the pigeons who nested in our bird table roof.
They had another brood and successfully reared another 2 squabs.
Here they all are having breakfast. (there is one interloper making the 7th pigeon in the photo)
   

The latest 2 young pigeons both took off almost together on their first flight, which was about a week ago today.

Mike

[Terry]

When we were in Ilford, our neighbour's house had a hole in the soffit on the corner of the bay nearest to us and seemingly large numbers of pigeons nested inside the roof. The property was rented and the occupants ignored the problem but the excrement that had built up on the window sill (and partly on ours, of course) had developed into quite a pile as well as running down the wall. There was also the constant noise, of course.

I hope your neighbours aren't having any problems with your brood, Mike!

[Crackle]

No Pigeons don't make hardly any noise, just a gentle "ooh" when courting.
Its wood pigeons that make a lot of noise coo cooo'ing on the roof tops and in trees.
The droppings are far less of a problem than Gills chickens.

[Crackle]

Another egg has been laid, pigeons seem to be almost as productive than Gills chickens.
It took Mildred some time to manage to squeeze out another egg after the last brood left the nest.

Mike

[Refugee]

That must have been triggered by a short spell of warm weather.
It is going to be difficult for the chick to survive at this time of year.