Where Are All the Baby Pigeons? | Mental Floss

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Where are all the baby pigeons
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I mean, have you ever seen one? You haven't. Don't lie. Rest assured, pigeons don't spawn out of nowhere as fully grown adults
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The reason you've never seen a baby pigeon or squab strutting around a city is twofold
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Pigeons are picky when it comes to real estate, and they're really good parents
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When it comes time to build a nest, adult pigeons tend to go for protected places
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like windowsills, on rooftops, and under bridges, according to Professor Emeritus at Cornell University and former executive director of
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the lab of ornithology, Charles Walcott. These out-of-the-way locales mimic in some ways the
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caves and cliffs that their unurbanized ancestors use. It's probably for the best that pigeon
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parents keep their squabs hidden. The adults are kind of adorable with their round bodies and big
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eyes, but squabs are, um, there's something else. Once they have their housing situation sorted out
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both males and females tend the young and feed them, Walcott told Mental Floss in a 2014 interview
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The parents feed their baby squabs a diet of pigeon milk. How do you milk a pigeon, you ask
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Very carefully. No, the milk is actually a nutrient-rich substance made out of digested skin cells
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from a portion of the parent's digestive tract. Yum Once they get a little older the young pidgeys can digest regurgitated food provided by either parent Yay teamwork Some bird species spend much less time in the nest some hardly any at all which helps
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explain why you've probably seen some adorable little ducklings trotting around. Squabs, on the other hand, stay in the nest for about a month to six weeks until they're
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basically adult sized. Pretty nice of pigeons to let their kids stay home until they're grown up
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Renting in New York is no joke. Once a squab leaves the nest, though, it begins to feed itself for the first time
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That explains a lot. If my parents made me digested skin cells and puke for my entire childhood, I'd steal
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other people's fries too. The now-adult pigeon also ignores its parents and joins a flock, which is composed of the
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same birds day after day that hang out in a particular area and that will be distinct
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from what goes on a couple blocks away. So to recap, their parents provide them with everything and they leave, form a clique
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and don't even call home? Millennials are killing the pigeon greeting card industry
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All that said, you might see a rare squab out on the town from time to time
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You can often recognize a young pigeon because it will have a few little downy feathers poking
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out from the back of its head, Walcott says. So if you see a rebellious teen bird with a wild haircut, congrats
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You just spotted a rare young pigeon. Thanks for watching

Where Are All the Baby Pigeons? | Mental Floss

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Where Are All the Baby Pigeons? | Mental Floss

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