r/interesting • u/I-T-Y • Jul 14 '26

NATURE Pigeon walks into falcon's nest

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237

u/InevitableHorror1342 Jul 14 '26

That went about how I expected

39

u/rodbrs Jul 14 '26

I expected the pigeon to quickly walk right out because I assumed (correctly) that the falcon would have been caught flat-footed. What I didn't expect was for the pigeon to be even slower on the uptake.

4

u/jesonnier1 Jul 14 '26

Apparently they identify Falcons by their silhouette. Not much of one when they're nesting.

4

u/-Darkeater_Midir- Jul 14 '26

Pigeon brains are actually just a loose piece of aquarium gravel.

2

u/Beneficial_Area_2986 Jul 15 '26

Natural selection at work

73

u/Terror_Flower Jul 14 '26

Took a bit longer actually

1

u/flwombat Jul 15 '26

did a "birds of prey" encounter thingy with my kids, learned a bunch of falcon and hawk stuff

The falcon probably didn't know wtf to do. They kill their prey by flying into it at incredible speed, like the 'falcon punch' idea is a real thing. The falcon in this video was just trying to whatever 'cuz it didn't actually know how to kill the stupid pigeon

A hawk would have reached out a talon and killed the pigeon without much effort; they kill by squeezing with their talons

3

u/SoMuchLard Jul 14 '26

But not like I'd hoped.

https://giphy.com/gifs/fDO2Nk0ImzvvW

1

u/rosstedfordkendall Jul 15 '26

Someone needs to edit that gif with falcon and pigeon heads.

3

u/Self_Reddicate Jul 14 '26

At first, it didn't. Then, it did.

2

u/Burswode Jul 14 '26

The pigeon got away and continued to harass the falcon on the nest. Eventually the falcon abandoned the nest and the pidgeons moved in. Its highly likely that the falcon was sitting on unfertilised eggs anyway. Nature can surprise you.

1

u/Haidere1988 Jul 14 '26

The video is longer, pigeon and falcon go off screen, falcon comes back ~10 secs later with a beak full of feathers.