Pigeons On Roof
Generally, pigeons live a life of equity. They do everything in common: from eating, taking their bath, flying, and sleeping.
Pigeons on roof are a very interesting lot to study, their complexity of character and simplicity is one quality hard to find in any other society of animals from avian to reptiles, from amphibians to mammals.
After a male and a female pigeon hooks up, they start making plans for having a family. They commence mating like every other animal in their care.
Pigeons are similar to humans in many aspects and this is one of them. They kiss with the male putting its head in between its wings occasionally, after this prolonged foreplay the female bends down for the normal copulation which takes place with the two birds joining their organs found at the base of their tails.
Gradually, the female’s eggs are developed and ready to be laid, that is when the male starts getting the pen ready for the female to roost. The male starts picking up sticks, straw, feathers to make the place cozy for its wife.
During this period it chaperons the wife from place to place and pecks it roughly at times on the neck signaling other males of the danger posed if they ever disturb the wife who is ready for roosting.
The eggs after being laid, two maximum, and the two pigeons now take turns to sit on the eggs. The female sits on them from night until morning, at about 12pm the next day or so, it leaves for the male to take over from that time to maybe 6 pm after which the female comes back and takes charge until the morning of the next day.
While the male keeps watching at the entrance of the pen to ward off other impending males that might disturb the female while she sits on the eggs, as rearing a family is a collective responsibility between the male and female pigeons respectively.
Roosting might take an average of seventeen days depending on the prevailing conditions, immediately the eggs hatch into young pigeons.
This time for feeding their young, with the male playing a dominant role, a role he plays until the female is ready to lay another set of eggs.
Now while the female gets prepared for laying another set of eggs, the males continue to feed their young until they get ready for their first flight.
Their feeding technique, another delight to watch, the parents after taking insufficient food and water, the two substances dissolve and serves as food to the young who get their nutrition by putting their tender beaks into the beaks of their parents who in turn send the food by vomiting it out into the bodies of these young ones.
As soon as they are brought into the world, within a short period of time, say, two weeks — it is ready to join other matured birds in the community for its first flight.
The issue of borders and territory is respected. Every male point and mark out areas and spaces for domination. The other pigeons respect these boundaries and borders.
