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Pigeons:
Pigeons mate for life and rear their broods together, although if
one dies the other will take a new mate. Once the simple nest is
built, the female lays an egg and then another a day or so later.
The incubation
period for common pigeons is 17 to 19 days. The female sits on the
egg from late afternoon through the night until about 10AM. The male
then takes over and does the day shift. Once the eggs hatch, both
parents feed the young squabs. The first food is pigeon milk or crop
milk,
a cheesy substance that appears in the crops of the parents at
hatching time and is fed for a week or so. Then the adults start
regurgitating partially digested
grains for the young. By the time the squabs are ready to fly, about
4 weeks, the father is doing most of the feeding. The squabs are fed
for another week to 10 days after they are free-flying.
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About 1 million pigeons make their
homes in New York City mating for life, nesting on windowsills,
swooping down for scraps of food and leaving droppings on the
shoulders of hapless pedestrians. |
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English:
Pigeons with feathers fluffed to keep warm during winter.
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The pigeons and doves exhibit
considerable variation in size. The largest species are the
crowned pigeons of
New Guinea, which
can weigh up to 2000 g, the smallest species is the new World
Common Ground-dove,
which is the same size as a
House Sparrow and
weighs only 30g.[1]
The largest arboreal species are the
imperial-pigeons
like the
New Caledonian Imperial-pigeon
and the
Kereru of
New Zealand.
Smaller species tend to be known as doves, and larger species as pigeons,
but there is no taxonomic basis for distinguishing between the two.
Overall, the Columbidae tend to
have short bills and legs, small heads on large compact bodies. The wings
are large and have low wing loadings; pigeons have string wing muscles
(wing muscles comprise 31-44% of their body weight) and are amongst the
strongest fliers of all birds. They are also highly manoeuvrable in
flight.
The
plumage of the
family is variable. Granivorous species tend to have dull plumage, with a
few exceptions, whereas the frugivorous species have brightly coloured
plumage.[1]
The
Ptilinopus
fruit-doves are some of the brightest coloured pigeons, with the three
endemic species of Fiji and the Indian Ocean
Alectroenas
being amongst the brightest coloured. Pigeons and doves may be sexually
monochromatic or
dichromatic. In
addition to bright colours pigeons may sport crests or other
ornamentation.
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