I honestly wonder how birds started making nests, from an evolutionary perspective. Like they must have started this simple… So what benefit did it provide?
Laying eggs on the ground is a good way to get them eaten by a predator. Some reptiles bury their eggs, that’s one option. But then you can’t really keep an eye on them or take care of the babies once they hatch. So maybe you try to find a nice safe place to keep them off the ground instead. Critters who were better at keeping their eggs from falling out of the tree or off the cliff had more babies, so nest-building behaviors get reinforced, even if it’s just laying a few twigs in the crook of a tree. Stick-loving birds get rewarded!
Pigeons are domesticated rock doves. They live on cliffs so the sticks are just there to keep the eggs from rolling away.
For millennia they were beloved pets and messengers. We bred independence out of them and doted upon them. Then we invented the telephone and cast them all out into the wild en masse. It’s amazing they’ve survived this well.
They are as we made them, and as we rejected them.
For real?
Kinda, not really. In the wild, pigeons build their nests on cliffs, so they really only need just enough nest to keep the eggs from rolling off. That’s why they make dopey lil stick piles instead of proper bowl-shaped nests
I’m not an ornithologist, so the following is my own uneducated hypothesis: pigeons haven’t adapted to live in cities, cities just mimic their natural habitats. They’ve survived this well because we’ve made great big terrariums for them
Apparently they normally would nest on rocky cliff edges and stuff so they just need enough material to stop the egg from rolling away. It still looks heaps silly, though.
perhaps they should just lay square eggs
Like a wombat?
Explain the doormat now
Well they don’t really care about nesting in the open, obviously, and the doormat is softer and replicates short lichen and/or grass. Soft is clearly better and it also means that the egg can’t roll away.
Was that supposed to be gotcha or something?
I’m proud of them, they’re doing their best.
