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Meet the pigeon
Pigeons navigate with the sun, smells, landmarks and a sense of Earth's magnetic field.
🏡 Cliffs originally — now rooftops and squares all over the world.🍽️ Seeds, grains and crumbs.⏳ 3–6 years in cities, up to 15 in care.
Friends and family
Flocks with steady friendships; pairs often stay together for life.
Both parents feed chicks 'crop milk' — a first for birds.
How they talk
Coos, wing claps and bowing dances.
How clever are they?
Pigeons learn to tell letters apart and can remember hundreds of images for years.
What they feel
Pigeons mourn a lost partner and may stop eating for a while.
Superpower: Built-in compass
Iron-rich cells in their beak may let them sense which way is north.
👀 See the world through their eyes
Sight
They see ultraviolet colours we can't imagine.
Hearing
Pigeons hear infrasound — distant storms and waves.
🤓 Did you know?
- Pigeon parents both make milk in their crop to feed chicks.
- Pigeons can learn to tell real words from jumbled letters.
- Exactly how pigeons sense magnetism is still being studied.scientists are still studying this
Living alongside people
Pigeons carried life-saving messages in both world wars, and are often treated as pests in the very cities they were brought to.