r/interesting • u/I-T-Y • Jul 14 '26

NATURE Pigeon walks into falcon's nest

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u/mamut2000 Jul 14 '26

what was the plan there?

61

u/UnDeadPuff Jul 14 '26

Seeing how pigeons "nest", it was probably going to attempt to make a nest inside this other bird's nest. Considering pigeons are more or less pets we released back to the wilds, they are very much not apt to surviving on their own and do stupid crap.

70

u/colourmill Jul 14 '26

You are talking about city pigeons which are domesticated feral animals.
The pigeon in the video is a wood pigeon which is a wild species that has never been domesticated

51

u/hologrammetry Jul 14 '26

With those survival instincts I’m surprised it’s made it this long.

1

u/finditplz1 Jul 14 '26

And they’re prolific!

1

u/Uncle_Moti Jul 14 '26

Survival is a numbers game.

1

u/FoldingLady Jul 14 '26

Many species rely on out-fucking the death cycle for survivorship.

1

u/hologrammetry Jul 14 '26

Yeah, most species also don't walk into their predator's den and say "Um, you're in the way."

3

u/TheNonCredibleHulk Jul 14 '26

domesticated feral

Isn't that contradictory?

1

u/InfanticideAquifer Jul 14 '26

I think what they mean is that it's evolved to live where humans do and interact with them (picking up trash and such). Kinda like rats. If all humans died, rats would follow pretty quickly. But they are still wild animals in the sense that they don't cooperate with us and would bite or run away, different from pet animals and farm animals.

I dunno if "domesticated" is the right word for that but I think it's understandable.

2

u/President_SDR Jul 14 '26

By definition feral animals are domesticated animals that live in the wild or descendants of domesticated animals, which applies to what people think of as "pigeons" (rock pigeon, rock dove, common pigeon, i.e. the ones usually found in cities). They're similar to the brown rat in that they happen to do well in urban environments, but they were domesticated first and then spread, while rats were always wild when they spread (although there are certainly some feral rats out there given we domesticated some of them as well).

0

u/colourmill Jul 14 '26

"feral" specifically describes domesticated animals

Animals can be wild (fe wolves) or domesticated (fe dogs)

As u/koied put it succinctly
"If someone releases a bunch of dogs into a forest, they won't suddenly become wolves... they'll be feral dogs."

In the case of pigeons
Rock pigeons are a wild species that humans then intentionally bred into domestication -> what we now know as city pigeons. (wild rock pigeons still exist too).
Once these pets lost their use to us, we abandoned them. That abandonment doesn't mean they automatically turned back wild, just feral.

2

u/UnDeadPuff Jul 14 '26

I'll take your word for it. To me it looks just like the ones I used to raise, and just as dumb.

2

u/kaspar-fiel Jul 14 '26

Thank you for correcting this guy.

1

u/baldeagle1991 Jul 14 '26

Weirdly enough it's not uncommon for Wood Pidgeons to get used to urban environments and eventually become feral.