From the pigeon’s post: 358

The Rockface pigeons under discussion, have happily shed the tag of “living in pigeonholes” and the centuries old word 'pigeonhole’. The high-rise buildings offering rent free spaces, why would they settle for less? With them focused on a mission in life to survive and proliferate, it becomes next to impossible to evict these two-legged squatters.

Reluctant to go outdoors, I decided to study the roosting pigeons by adopting this observation-questions -published information technique - a Q&A with self-study. I chose three all-weather observation posts, with guaranteed visibility, that are within a few steps of each other for this purpose. The O.P1 is on the sunshade, below an outdoor ac unit of the opposite apartment, with a view from my bedroom window. The O.P2 is on a similar sunshade of the same apartment, just in front of my standing room only balcony, though sighting is through defensive nylon net backed by a grill work intended to keep away pigeons. The O.P 3 is on a sunshade of a neighbour’s apartment, with an anytime view from the common corridor.

The male pigeon struts around and waddles on the sunshade moving its body from left to right, bobbing its head back and forth as if practicing its own brand of ramp walk. On the other hand, the female, smaller in size, appears calm, unhurried and cautiously moves around. Sometimes, for the fun of it, both keep tracing imaginary circles, without their bodies touching each other like the spools rotating in a tape deck.  To impress the female, the male flutters its wings and puts up an impressive airshow with take offs and landings.

Physical attraction having been established, the pigeons start working on the body chemistry and then move on to biology classes. Intuitively knowing the purpose of their life, the pair selects a location to build a nest with slender reeds, sticks from broom, fibrous material or simply use any depression on the surface of a sunshade. Their objective is to have a nest with protection from the elements and a safety net for the eggs from rolling off the ledge. The roosting pair has to remain alert to danger from the cheeky squirrels. These fury-tailed villains think that the unguarded eggs, or squabs are fair game, for fun or pizza.

I gave up identifying one pair of pigeon from one another as it was like saying this and particle is different from that sand particle. The pairs of pigeons come home to roost at the same location, driven by the motto -   Familiarity breeds squabs.

The twin mysteries, why they choose to rest - perched precariously on drainpipes, edges of sunshades, and other uncomfortable niches and in this position how do they manage to sleep without falling over?  The pigeons must have gone scientific by adopting a unihemispheric sleeping technique, where one-half of the brain is resting the other half stays awake & alert to threats and falling off from the perches.

To be on the safer side, I confirmed with the published materials that my observations cum conclusions on gender identification, distinguishing pairs and their courting rituals are more or less correct.

The story from O.P 1:

A pair of pigeons made several flybys to select the sunshade under the outdoor ac unit. Their logic must have been to make use of some of the machine generated heat for use in hatching the eggs. Since this Observation Post was not under my constant surveillance during courtship and the delivery of eggs remained like an unread   chapter to me.  Returning home after a few days of absence, I noticed a solitary egg, carefully set amidst some trash material. One of the pigeons was maintaining the line of sight while the other kept the egg warm.

Given little more time, I would have understood that the pair shared the duties in the nest. The single egg was a pointer towards two possibilities. The female is yet to fully mature and build up stamina or has past its prime with depleted strength. Due to my inexperience, I had missed the important physiological indicators like colour of feathers or other physical characteristics.

Left to its own devices, when the parents were away from time to time, the egg had started to change position every day till the shell started developing hairline cracks. Finally, when the shell broke into two halves, I was able to view the dark lump of a squab. An ominous development occurred when a squirrel emitting squeaks had decided to investigate the site for its own nest, on the wall mounting bracket behind the outdoor unit.

By this time, the pigeons thinking that they have done all they could do, started to keep irregular visiting hours. Unaware of this lurking danger, the squab in the eggshell continued to shift around. The squab residing in the broken shell must have presented a tempting opportunity. Emboldened, the squirrel seized control of the situation. Belting out loud ‘squeaks’, it scurried down on to the sunshade a few times, to assess and plan its move but tactfully withdrew sensing my presence.

Next morning, alerted by the unusual noise, I hurried to the window. The agitated pigeons were flying over the spot where the squab should have been.  The loss of the squab must have formed an emotional storm and waves of distress in their tiny brains. They could do nothing but aimlessly walk on the sunshade and emit repetitive moans, which sounded tragic & forlorn. The grief-stricken pigeons were trying to understand what had gone wrong, probably thinking that their agitated pacing would bring back the squab well and alive.

Oddly, the metallic sounding squeaks and the squirrel have gone silent. I could only guess that either the squirrel has pushed out the squab in the broken shell, to prevent the pigeons from disturbing its nest or might have feasted on a free meal.  A heart wrenching sight for any human observer. I watched them for some time lost in thoughts as to what could I do to console them.

The story from O.P 2:

The neighbours did not pay heed to my concern about the health issues attributed to these squatters. Unable to sleep under the unrelenting heat wave, I migrated to my stamp sized balcony to appeal to the clouds to stop debating and start raining. Undisturbed by my presence, pairs of pigeons clung to drainpipes, wall mounted brackets, exhaust fan frames, windowsills and sunshades as their sleeping quarters.

Next day morning, I noticed a pair of pigeons busily engaged in spreading sticks of a broom, on the sunshade opposite to my apartment. Correcting my earlier mistake, I easily identified the male pigeon by its body build, strutting, loud coos and puffed out neck and chest feathers. To actively court the partner, he attempted to dazzle the female with bright iridescent feathers on his neck. 

The sleek female pigeon, with not so iridescent neck feathers, participated enthusiastically. At times she refused to play along by crouching down flat on the sunshade to discourage further entreaties. After some more cooing and ring-a- ring-a- roses dancing, the female pigeon playfully attempted to adhere to the wall.

 Piqued by this act, I stood rooted to my spot, recollecting the published facts that being monogamous and in their prime, the pigeons continue with the courtship which triggered the ovulation cycle in the female pigeon, signaling her readiness to start a family.

After a few reruns of this episode, the pigeon playfully attempted to adhere to the wall, delivered an egg after a few days and by pure chance I happened to witness the egg being delivered, in real time. Then, using her beak and legs she started to nudge the egg around to keep it safe behind the barricade of arranged broom sticks.

I geared myself to clock the arrival of the second egg and chronicle the hatching event. Unaware of this developing situation, a squirrel was sprinting up and down, along a vertical drainpipe with whatever mission it had in its mind. I called it a day after verifying that the second egg has not been laid yet.

The next morning, the vacant space told me the sad story. The egg and the sticks of the broom have been swept off the sunshade. The clueless pigeons, vainly searched for the missing egg and the sticks of the broom. Tragedy notwithstanding, the female pigeon was on a clock to lay the second egg within 48 hours, before it gets air dropped. Their plan to hatch a male and female squab at that place going terribly wrong, the heartbroken parents might have departed in search of another location.  

Who stole the egg and removed the sticks of the broom? Whether the second egg was laid in time, in another place? Mysteries fit to be solved by Sherlock Holmes! Needless to say, I closed my observations with a heavy heart.

The story from O.P 3:

This neighbour had refused to clear the debris and fill the shallow pit on his sunshade. I had even pointed out the pair of pigeons eyeing the shallow depression and debris for a possible hatching site. For good measure I reminded him that that a pair of pigeon or the bulbuls chose the same place again, perhaps for sentimental reasons after having completed a successful batch. I drew his attention to the bird droppings already on the sunshade to drive home my point.

After a few days, my apprehension became a certainty. The female pigeon was calmly doing sentry duty guarding two eggs. The debris, the depression and pigeon droppings had become home for the eggs.

Whether the pigeons counted the days or not, I did. In the interim, I learnt that a mature female pigeon is a fast breeder reactor, brooking no delay or disruption in her egg laying cycles. She can initiate her ovulation cycle at will. Typically, she delay-starts the hatching process by 2 days, to match with the arrival of the second egg.

Within 4-6 weeks and at times even when the hatched squabs are still in the nest, she is ready to lay the next clutch of eggs. I started to wonder whether the pigeons are targeting to achieve the maximum number of hatchings like the possible number of New Moons or Full moons in a calendar year!

With such energy consuming activities ahead, the parents share the workload in nest keeping duties. The female stays with the eggs/squabs from late afternoon till about mid-morning and the male takes over for the midmorning to the late afternoon shift. This shift rotation allows the female pigeon to recuperate and refresh.

On the fag end of the 3^rd week, the broken shells announced the increase in the population of pigeons, with at least one female squab. A squab of Rock face pigeon starts as an indistinguishable lump, with pale yellow or yellowish gray coloured feather, at birth. As it matures the colour gradually changes to gray.

The squabs must be feeling lucky as both the parents take turn to feed them with specially secreted crop milk. As the squabs age, the frequency of parental visits becomes sporadic as the squabs have been fed with enough nourishment.  The parents have done their best. The infrequent visits and hunger make the squabs to leave the nest early. The absence of the marauding squirrel remained a puzzle, but it had helped the eggs to survive, avoiding a heartache to the parents.

After building up sufficient strength to survive on their own, the fledglings fly away, probably vacating the space for their parents to start the next batch, though I am yet to confirm this. In the world of pigeons everything has to run like the parts of a Swiss clock.

The squabs mature in about eight months. But within 4-7 months, the yet to fully mature female pigeon might start laying one egg per clutch signaling the arrival of another fast breeder reactor. Older or under nourished female pigeons adopt this one egg per clutch rule to ensure survival of the hatched squab.

No doubt, the pigeons proliferate and use our premises as their washroom facilities. The stink arising from their droppings and fallen feathers ranks alongside the foul smell that assails travellers as the train approaches the outskirts of a typical metropolitan city.

Setting aside my deep-rooted pathological aversion to the pigeons to take a closer look at their life cycle was immensely rewarding.  It forced me to learn published materials, become a Zoolinguist and an avianliguist to understand their feelings on my way to become an indoor ornithologist!