pov pigeon
Today I want to tell you, my dear friends, how I spend my day. Let's start from the moment I hatched from the egg. Then I was a freak: there were no feathers, only in some places there was down in bunches, and it looked as if all the feathers had been plucked out for me, blind, barely noticeable against the background of bare skin, closed eyes, a slightly soft yellow beak and thin cotton legs. I had three sisters and a brother - Sarah, Samantha, Syra and Glick. By the way, my name is Mir, and mine, on this moment late parents - Hira and Sing. My father was killed by a human chick and my mother was hit by a car. That is how we live. But the tears have already been shed, and only a sad memory remains. No matter how, we are pigeons, every day we have someone who dies. My people live in the zoo, they love us here, they feed us. True, not everyone loves us, mostly grandmothers, but the rest hardly interfere with us. Children do not like us, because we often take revenge on them for chasing us, throwing "stars on their heads." We have an eternal enmity. If we are not fed, then we steal food from swans and ducks. Once we tried to take food from geese, but believe me, it did not end in anything good. I said the main thing, now you can describe my day. As soon as I wake up, I fly to the bird cages, eat and coo. On the way, I pee on the head of a nasty child chasing my brothers. He moves away from them and burns me with a hateful look. But I'm already used to it and, therefore, I calmly fly past him again, throwing another projectile. Seeing the child, I immediately realized that the zoo was already open. Of course, I'm not the only one who realized this. This was understood by several dozen more pigeons. They are not bread. Which, by the way, they pecked. And then the war begins not for life, but for eternal hunger. Grandmother, sitting on a bench, as if mocking, throws us one piece at a time. No, to crumble and throw everything at once, and not to tear off piece by piece ... It's a shame in general. After some time, I had already eaten and cooed, and I was ready to fly further. Flying near the cage with cats, I decide to lower the height, but quickly change my mind, crashing into the head of a Human Folk girl. She leaves the zoo. At the end, I found a method to scare away people) The sun is already setting, and, after another feeding, I fly back to my roof. But half way I fight off the pack, and, suspecting nothing, I fly through the cage with bird of prey. Who would have thought that birds could be predatory? In principle, pigeons have no time to think about it. And that's why I got caught in the eagle's claws. Before she started torturing me with her huge beak, I had time to think: "Cannibalism is rampant." Death didn't scare me. We all see the deaths of our fellow men every day. On the contrary, I was pleased with the fact that today is the day of my death. Finally, all this will stop.
Igor Nikolaev
Reading time: 4 minutes
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Pigeons have sharp eyesight. Thanks to their eyes, they are able to navigate the terrain well. The features of bird vision are passed on to their offspring by inheritance. During breeding work, attention is paid not only to the exterior of the female and male, which form a parental pair, but also check their eyesight, hearing, look at flight characteristics. Eye color is determined by the component of the pigment substance, which is located on the iris. What is the structure of the eyes of a dove? What determines their color?
Eye sign
The pigeon's eyes are large and deep-set. They are located on the sides of the head, closer to the beak. They have been protected for centuries. Some breeds have a warty layer around the eye. It is protective, prevents dust from entering the mucous membrane. If a bird sits calmly on a parapet or on a branch, its eye color is gray, then this means that it is sleeping, its eyes are closed. Gray is not the color of the iris. This is the third eyelid that covers the eye. The dove does not know how to blink, removing dirt from the mucous membrane. This function is performed by the third eyelid. It is mobile. Located in the inner corner of the eye. The eyelid periodically extends, wetting and cleansing the mucous membrane of the eye.
Some individuals of flight breeds, in addition to the eyelid, have voluminous outgrowths above the eye, which prevent dust and small insects from entering the mucous membrane. Such protrusions are typical for sporting breeds of pigeons. Instead of protrusions, birds may have scutes. They are a century ahead. They seem to hang over the eye. Shields are a sign of good flying qualities in pigeons.
Pigeons' eyes
The eyeball can be seen as a collection of circles. They are clearly visible in bright light, so the inspection of birds is carried out under an electric lamp or in bright light. sunshine. The light will not hurt the pigeon's eyes. Thanks to the iris, which determines the color of the eyes, and which is the diaphragm, birds quickly adapt to the penetration of bright light. Unlike other birds and animals, pigeons can look at the sun for a long time. When examining the organs of vision, the iris is immediately visible, but it is not the first layer of the eye. Between the iris and the pupil, colored circles are found, which are the sign of the eye. According to them, the sports characteristics of the bird are determined:
- The top layer of the eyeball forms the pupil. It is small, round in shape. When examining a bird, it is necessary to find out how well the sphincter muscle works, which contributes to the constriction and expansion of the pupil. On this layer, an image of objects is formed. It is also called the terrain recognition circle. The high-flying pigeon has an active and mobile pupil. In light-eyed birds, the pupil is less mobile than in dark-eyed individuals. If this function is not well developed, then the bird will rise to a low or maximum to a medium height;
- around the pupil is an adaptation circle. It is slightly paler in color than the pupil. It is believed that the richer the shade of the adaptation circle, the better the flight qualities of the bird. The pigment may be unevenly distributed throughout the circle, the best option is black on the bottom surface;
- when examining the eyes of a bird, a correlation circle is clearly distinguished. It comes from the pupil, capturing the iris layer, then spreads throughout the eye. In pigeons with good ability to navigate in space, the correlation circle has a stellate structure. In young animals, it is pink. In individuals of the older generation, it is dark, up to black. Experts say that the black color of the correlation circle indicates the bird's superpowers. It is extremely rare;
- the correlation circle is framed by the iris. It is yellow-red in color, in pigeons it may darken with age. If the iris is wide, it takes the place of an adaptive and correlation circle, then the high-flying qualities of the bird will be reduced, but the homing of pigeons will be high level. If the iridescent layer is excessively expanded, has a discontinuous color, then this indicates an individual with poor flying qualities and dubious mental abilities. Such a bird may get lost, will not show good results;
- around the rainbow layer there is a circle of pigeon health. With an adaptation circle, it should have the same color and size. An extended or narrowed circle of health is characteristic of individuals with poor reproductive functions.
When examining a bird, the period of use of antibiotics is taken into account. When using drugs in the eyeball, changes occur. The pupil is not able to quickly respond to the brightness of the light beam, display quality surrounding objects. The use of medicines reduces the ability to navigate the terrain.
eye tint
The color of the eyes of both humans and birds depends on the pigment of the iris, on the concentration of blood vessels and fibers. The fibers that make up the iris are blue. A high concentration of blood vessels gives the eyes a red color. At the same time, the fiber density is low. The pigment, melanin, is always black or dark brown.
In addition to melanin, there is another substance on the iris that provides the eyes with yellow and green color. This is lipochrome. Other shades are the play of light, the quality of the refraction of its rays. Together they form yellow, pearl, amber, orange colors and shades. At exhibitions, they always consider what color doves have eyes? It must match the breed of the bird.
From where doves sleep, their life expectancy directly depends. As civilization develops, we leave less and less space for wildlife. This can be seen in the example of birds in the city, which are forced to settle in attics or under the roofs of houses. How they rest, in what position and how many hours, you will learn from our article. And we will also tell you if they close their eyes during sleep and if they lose control, forgetting about predators.
Pigeon life in the city
IN daytime days city pigeons are visible to everyone. They roam in whole flocks in parks and squares, as well as in squares, feeding on all possible ways, including from human hands.
At night, these birds seem to dissolve and completely disappear from view. However, with the first rays of the rising sun, they again appear in the direct line of sight of a person, once again filling the familiar space. And it is completely incomprehensible to many citizens where these birds live in the city and where they spend the night.
The following places can be used as shelter:
- attics;
- niches in the walls of buildings;
- alleys, squares and parks;
- economic objects.
Regarding where the pigeons spend the night, it should be said that the birds remain true to their instincts. These city birds are not very comfortable in the trees. They feel much better at various architectural objects, especially those where you can hide from the weather.
Better sleep - longer life
The average life expectancy of one individual in the conditions of the city is approximately 15-20 years, but cases have been recorded when individual birds lived to 30 and even 35 years. When compared with those pigeons that live in wild nature, then the difference in this matter is very significant, because most of them live no more than 5 years. This is due to constant anxiety, the expectation of an attack by predators, and therefore, pigeons systematically lack a good rest.
In the city, feathered individuals have more opportunities to find good conditions for night sleep. You just have to be very careful and arrange lodging for the night in places inaccessible to cats.
Those pigeons that live at home are much better protected from the adverse effects of various factors. Breeders monitor the health of their pets, including their sleep, provide them with proper care and a balanced diet. The better and fuller the sleep, the longer, subject to other conditions, the life of a feathered pet will be.
Sleep time depends on the time of year
Under normal conditions, it is quite difficult to see how pigeons sleep. Eg, wild birds can twist their nests in the crowns of deciduous trees, respectively, it is very difficult to see them from below.
During sleep, the position taken is in many ways reminiscent of the one in which chickens sleep - the body of the bird is in the nest, the head is hidden under the wing and the paws are tucked under themselves. They arrive to sleep already in the evening, when dusk sets in. The duration of sleep is highly dependent on the time of year, pigeons are diurnal birds, so the duration of their rest is equal to the duration of the night, this also includes the twilight hours.
Based on the foregoing, the night rest of the pigeons continues until it becomes light, that is, 13-14 hours - in winter. In summer, birds sleep less - about 8-9 hours.
Features of pigeon vision
In urban buildings and structures, you can see pigeon nests by climbing into not the most common places, at least for humans. These can be ventilation ducts and shafts, a place between the roof of the house and its covering, for example, slate.
The impossibility of night flights of pigeons, associated with the peculiarities of their vision, dictates the need not to disturb the birds at night. Photoreceptor cones, which make up the retina of pigeons, react only to daylight; at night they see almost nothing.
This feature of vision implies that sleeping birds can fly out of the nest in fright and, due to their poor orientation in space, run into an obstacle dangerous to health and even life. However, the appearance of light (even artificial) quickly brings the bird into a cheerful state, he believes that morning has come and it's time to get up.
Usually during sleep, pigeons close their eyes and can completely turn off for 10-15 minutes. This is enough to give their brain a rest. By the way, this state is used when catching birds, which we talk about in the article “How to catch a pigeon with your hands or a rope.”
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When we talk about the domestication of animals, cows, dogs or chickens come to mind first. Nevertheless, man domesticated pigeons 6,000 years ago, breeding 350 species (dog breeds, by the way, are not much more - about 400).
The dove's ancestor is the rock dove of the Middle East, a bird so widespread that it took almost no effort for humans to tame them. According to one hypothesis, pigeons themselves began to settle with people when they mastered agriculture. The birds ate the grain, and the people ate the pigeons themselves.
But for this, man largely contributed to the spread of pigeons around the globe. During the Great Migration of Nations and the Age of Discovery, travelers carried pigeons along with all their belongings.
Darwin's theory
Before Darwin's Classification of Species was published, the author sent copies to several of his friends for review. Their responses were more than critical. One of the first readers of the book, one Whitewell Alvin, called Darwin's work "stupid fiction."
Darwin's problem was that evolution is hard to see with the naked eye. The scientist needed a clear example that would help convince skeptics. And Darwin built his argument on the example of pigeons. In particular, he proved that all pigeons are descended from the Middle Eastern rock dove. Whitewell Alvin, by the way, generally decided that Darwin had written a book about pigeons.
Education
Pigeons are used in many scientific studies because they are easy to train. They are also easy to train, despite the fact that their brain is no larger than the pad of their index finger. Psychologists at Keio University have been able to tell Picasso's doves from Manet's with 90% accuracy.
Pigeons can also distinguish people. Studies conducted in Paris showed that, even if a person changed clothes, the pigeons unmistakably recognized him: they kept their distance from the one who once drove them away, and, on the contrary, flew closer to the one who fed them.
In London, a similar experiment was carried out on photographs of people, and pigeons also showed that they distinguish people they have seen before from strangers. In Iowa (USA), pigeons were taught to distinguish between human emotions. The authors of the study concluded that despite the fact that pigeons are unlikely to understand the essence of emotions, they see the difference. Therefore, if you next time will shout "How long!!!" and threaten the pigeons, sitting serenely in the tree under which you parked the car, know that it is not useless!
Coast security
In the 1970s, the American authorities seriously planned to use pigeons in the Coast Guard. Their mission was to search for the shipwrecked. Pigeons could distinguish a lifejacket bouncing on the waves from marine debris 93 times out of a hundred, and the crews of rescue planes - only 38 times!
The birds were to be kept in a cage attached to the bottom of the helicopter. As soon as they saw a suspicious object in the sea, they pressed a special switch. Despite good performance, the project was closed in 1983 due to lack of funding.
Mathematics
Scientists taught rhesus monkeys basic arithmetic operations in 1998. But the brain of primates is much more perfect than the brain of birds. However, pigeons are also able to solve simple mathematical problems.
At the University of Otago in New Zealand, scientists conducted an experiment and taught pigeons to arrange pictures on the screen in ascending order, depending on the number of objects depicted on them. Elizabeth Brannon of Duke University in North Carolina says that this phenomenal ability of pigeons will force scientists to reconsider the whole theory about the mental abilities of animals with a similar brain structure.
Smuggling
Pigeons are often used to transfer contraband - for example, to transfer drugs to prisons. Pigeons can easily lift 10% of their own weight. IN South America pigeons act as couriers in the smuggling of diamonds, which causes significant damage to the mine owners.
Espionage
Pigeons often participated in wars and were even awarded medals. The Korean War was the last in which pigeons took part. But some countries have used pigeons for more than just conveying information.
Back in the early 20th century, the Germans tried to use pigeons for aerial photography. The method was invented by the pharmacist Julius Neubronner. One day, one of his carrier pigeons, which he used to send medicines to a nearby sanatorium, disappeared for two weeks and returned full. Julius decided to find out where he flew, and placed a miniature camera on the pigeon's chest. It turned out that the bird made a close acquaintance with the chef of one restaurant and regularly flew to him for dinner.
After that, Neubronner developed several models of cameras and began to train pigeons. (So if you think your quadcopter is cool, you're wrong!) In 1909, Neubronner received a patent for his invention, which later became used for military purposes. According to the report, in 1942 the Red Army discovered abandoned German trucks with pigeon cameras that could take pictures at five-minute intervals, as well as dogs trained to carry pigeons in baskets.
It is also known that in the 1970s the CIA used pigeons during the Cold War, but this data is still classified. The pigeon camera can be seen during a virtual tour of the US CIA museum.
Orientation
Pigeons are widely known for their ability to return home, overcoming great distances, but for a long time this ability of theirs remained a mystery. And only recently a group of Swiss and South African scientists decided this issue. Experts believe that birds use a combination of solar and electromagnetic vibrations. Hans-Peter Lipp of the University of Zurich believes that pigeons also take into account the Earth's gravitational field, as if they had a gyroscope built into their brains. True, what biological mechanisms are involved in this, scientists have not yet understood.
Pigeons have a bad reputation today. Many perceive them as stupid birds that shit on the streets and spread diseases. Some call them "winged rats". Although there is no reason for such an attitude, especially since pigeons are incredibly smart creatures.
Ordinary city pigeons are well oriented in space and will always find their way home. Firstly, pigeons remember the features of the landscape on their way; secondly, they remember smells; thirdly, they have a "built-in compass" with which they navigate by the sun. If one of these features fails, the bird cannot find its way home. Banal artificial street lighting can prevent the pigeon from returning home.
Researchers at the University of Oxford equipped birds with a GPS navigation system to track their route as they fly. During their journey, the two pigeons had the choice of returning home individually or as a pair. The birds found a compromise and chose something in between - they went along a common route that was close to their separate routes leading home. The fact is that pigeons are able to obey the leader and follow him, but if the routes of the pigeons are completely different or directed in different directions, then a compromise is not possible. It should be noted that pigeons in a flock overcome the route much more efficiently than alone.
With one more interesting fact researchers encountered a few years ago when they realized that pigeons can distinguish people's faces. During the experiment, two researchers, approximately the same in size and type, treated the pigeons differently: one was kind, and the other chased them around the cage while feeding. Through certain time the researchers stopped appearing in front of the pigeons, but when they reappeared, the birds recognized them and began to shun the one who had behaved aggressively in the past, despite the fact that he stood still.
Among the little-known facts about pigeons, the ability of birds to remember certain information for a long time should be highlighted. Another experiment, conducted at the Mediterranean Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, aimed to measure the memory properties of pigeons compared to baboons. Pigeons and baboons were often shown a picture and color, and the animals had to remember the associations. Pigeons managed to remember from 800 to 1200 associations. Although they lost in the competition to baboons, this is a good result.
Behind Lately studies have shown that pigeons know abstract mathematics. They tend to calculate their behavior, which was previously considered the prerogative of only primates. During the experiment, three sets of items were shown to three pigeons on a screen. One set had one item, the second had two, and the third had three. All objects differed in color, shape and size. Pigeons were taught to peck on the screen, first a set with one object, then with two, and later with three. When they did exactly what they were asked to do, the pigeons were shown sets containing one to nine items, respectively. As a result, the pigeons were able to distinguish sets with one, two, and three objects, although they were not taught that there could be more than three objects. This experiment showed that pigeons are able to understand the nature of numbers and that they are not alien to cause and effect relationships.
Many facts about the role of pigeons in human history are missing from textbooks. But everyone is well aware that people have been using pigeon mail since time immemorial. Therefore, during the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, the defenders of the city used this talent of pigeons to transmit messages, which was faster than the telegraph. For obvious reasons, less than 10% of birds survived the hostilities of the First World War. Many of the survivors were awarded Maria Deakin medals for their invaluable services.
4. Pigeons have superstitious behavior
In 1947, Skinner published the results of an experiment in which pigeons with a small weight were placed in a cage. They were fed regularly at regular intervals. Over time, 6 out of 8 pigeons showed interesting behavior. One of the birds regularly repeated the same movement - stuck its head into the corner of the cage, the other continuously moved around the cage in a circle. The fact is that the birds decided that they were fed only because of their strange behavior.
3. Relatives of the Dodo bird
DNA analysis of pigeons showed similarities with the extinct dodo bird. A relative of the modern pigeon is the multi-colored Nicobar pigeon, which lives in southeast Asia and the Nicobar Islands. Before scientific discovery it was difficult to determine which family the extinct dodo bird belonged to, as it was characterized by unique external physical features.
2. Pigeons can be of different colors
It seems to many that pigeons are mostly medium-sized, dark gray in color and live on the streets of the city. Most of them, yes, but this is only one of the species. Pigeons live all over the world and many of them look very beautiful. For example, there are fruit doves that surprise with their bright green, red and yellow hues.
1. Pigeons are several thousand years old
Pigeons can be called human companions. The first documentary mention of them appeared more than 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia. In Egypt, the remains of pigeons were found in ancient human burials. There have been cases in history when people treated pigeons as sacred birds. They were worshiped, they were exalted. Despite the fact that some species of pigeons have disappeared and become rare, they have coexisted with people for thousands of years.
