Citizen Scientists Pigeon Watch

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle Sep 5, 2007

If you’ve ever looked closely at pigeons in the city, you know that they come in an astonishing variety of different colors. This is a bit unusual in birds: most birds of the same sex in a species look alike: most House Sparrows look the same; most adult European Starlings are indistinguishable from one another. Why do feral pigeons vary so much?

Scientists are studying feral pigeons (descendants of Rock Pigeons, or Rock Doves that were domesticated) to find out why the colour variations, introduced through breeding by humans, persist in birds that have returned to the wild, and what colour variations individual pigeons prefer in a mate. They’re enlisting the help of citizen scientists to gather data from all over the world.

If you like pigeons and have some in your neighborhood, you can join the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Pigeon Watch. You’ll learn how to recognize the various “colour morphs,” how to identify a courting pair, and lots of other interesting things about pigeons, and the data you gather will be used in a scientific study. To learn more, visit the website for Pigeon Watch.

Read more about pigeons:

Columbidae - Doves and Pigeons

The Mysterious Extinct Dodo Bird