r/interesting • u/I-T-Y • Jul 14 '26

NATURE Pigeon walks into falcon's nest

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u/WifesPOSH Jul 14 '26

I think the irony is that falcons don't build their own nest. They usually use prebuilt nests and come back to them every year. Effectively utilizing squatter's rights.

The company I used to work for had a falcon nest, and every year there was a vote to name the hatched chicks (or whatever the babies are called).

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u/meowsterpainter Jul 14 '26

There is no way a falcon would ever steal a pigeon’s nest though. They are famous for being the worse nest builders in the entire bird kingdom, often placing as little as two sticks on the ground and calling it good.

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u/Legacyopplsnerf Jul 14 '26

That strat makes sense when you remember their natural habitat is cliff faces, just find a divot in the rock, lay the egg and put down a few twigs so it doesn't roll off. Most of the work is in finding a good spot to lay the egg.

City pigeons just make do with whatever looks vaguely cliff shaped.

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u/meowsterpainter Jul 14 '26

Sounds sensible on paper, but then if you go look at some of the nests on that dove subreddit you start to wonder.

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u/IHKPruefling Jul 14 '26

And yet they are the most common bird species in cities all around the world. So seems like it's working.

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u/Cronicfangirl2 Jul 14 '26

Well they’re also domestic animals that were released by humans in a lot of places so it makes sense that they’d be in cities while a lot of birds were pushed out when cities were built. Pidgeons were bred to live along humans.