Talk:Feral pigeon

message: I've transferred information to a new article on Feral pigeons.Barbara Shack 12:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I'm aware of that. Did you consider discussing this change first, or providing reasoning on the page itself at all? This is a fairly big change, and it would seem that information directly pertaining to one particular species should belong on that species' article, whether or not it takes up an extensive amount of space (and in this case, the information on feral pigeons is one of the more relevant sections within the Rock pigeon article.--C.Logan 12:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Unfortunately, according to WP:LENGTH#A rule of thumb, the size of the article (20,993 bytes) did not come close to warranting a content fork by size alone. The problem with this article is that you've essentially formed parallel articles concerning the same species, with corresponding sections on feeding, breeding, etc. This kind of forking, as far as I can see, is strongly discouraged.--C.Logan 13:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This discussion seems to be going on here, and on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#Rock pigeon and Talk:Rock Pigeon, as well as personal pages.  Can we bring it all together to one place?  I suggest Talk:Rock Pigeon.--Richard New Forest 15:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Splitting Rock Pigeon

message: The very brief note about the California use of OvocontrolP needs work. The project has, so far as anyone can tell, failed.  Also, OvoControlP itself presents some issues which might eventually mandate reconsidering the California project. This was widely discussed in New York, when a local councilman proposed a similar use; most of that material can be found by searching on "Simcha Felder" and "pigeons".
There is also some real problems with the don't-feed-'em line.  See the relevant discussion in Johnston & Janiga, Feral Pigeons--djenner (talk) 03:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rather superficial; neutral enough but misses some of the better data 

message: In Dawlish pigeons are to be found on the beach, and nest under the overhead railway on the sefront. I can't find an online reference for this new habitat, but is well known (in fact very obvious) locally. Can anyone find a reference? Totnesmartin 20:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beach pigeons 

message: cOULD SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY WE NEVER SEE BABY OR SMALL PIGEONS AROUND?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.227.161.249 (talk) 18:04, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: By the time that they're old enough to leave the nest, young pigeons are the same size and pretty much the same colour as their parents. Pigeon nests are usually either high up or well-hidden under cover, so you don't really notice them unless you live nearby and see the adults coming and going with food. There's some pictures of baby pigeons at Rock_Pigeon#Gallery, if you want to see what they look like... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 18:17, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

text: If you want to see baby pigeons, go to the West Portal Muni Metro station in San Francisco. Go into the station and look up at the blue curved steel beams holding up the roof. Tubes of chicken wire have been place atop the beams to keep pigeons from nesting there. However, in some places the pigeons have found a way in and built nests there. Every day commuters watch the pigeon babies growing up. The other day I saw one take its first flight. You just need to know where to look.  Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

text: Now that I'm paying closer attention, I'm seeing juvenile pigeons everywhere. While standing, their height is on the low side of normal compared to adult pigeons, but only because the have very long legs. The height of the body is quite small. From front to back, their length is on the low side of normal compared to adults, but only because of the longer tail feathers. From left to right they are quite narrow, and thus have very low body volume, and presumably mass. Their heads are small, but the beaks are the same length as adult beaks, just much narrower at the base. The toes are nearly the same length as in adults, but only half the diameter. Their wings, when folded, do not blend in to the body as with adult pigeons, but stick out all around. Zyxwv99 (talk) 19:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  BABY FERAL PIGEONS 

message: I fed a bunch of pigeons crackers a few days ago. A couple of pigeons started to eat the crackers out of my hand. It was kind of surprising because they usually run and fly away from humans. But it sure was cool. B-Machine (talk) 17:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Pigeons Will Come To You

message: Should include the most famous description of them (the second variant repeated by Ken Livingstone)... AnonMoos (talk) 13:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen came up with "flying rats." He also coined the words "Beatnik" and "Hippie."Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Winged rat is a common description in Australia. Andrewa (talk) 19:43, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

text: Removed. There is a difference between a colloquial moniker and a common name in frequent use. "Flying rats" / "rats with wings" is the latter; only the former get mention in the lede. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:55, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: "flying rats" / "rats with wings"

message: People from some Indian (Mexican), Chinese and other ethnias feed pigeons on principle as a way to establish control of the presence of people in parks and to control the cleanliness of places and streets where they want to make a silent statement against neighbors. This has to do with the color gray and the way pigeons dirty parks, streets, cars and can keep people away from benches and other rest spaces. This even against non existent regulations. Pigeons would appear to reproduce more often, but it is people under such practice who bring them to place and feed them, even when seemingly nobody is feeding them. It is a reason why they act as vermin or plague and why it is so difficult to exterminate them or drive them away. This practice goes to the extreme of managing flocks by feeding them in different places and corners so they grow steadily and finally invade some spot to make it unusable to people as the people filling the place with pigeon poop want. It is most likely that the presence of pigeons in cities is not due to spontaneous migration but are specially brought into the city by these people to dirty the place and it is them who keep such vermin population stable. Pigeons carry some particularly nasty parasites and can cover acts of Human vandalism after they concentrate and the place is emptied because of the accumulation of pigeon excrement.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.246.151 (talk) 23:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fed feral figeons 

message: They not only eat grains and bread, they also eat liver pate and probably other animal innard. This can be tested at home. City pigeon flocks would originate from corpses left to rot, or be used to hide corpses and leave clean bones. This is convenient if the flock can be fed elsewhere away from the corpse to hide the source of the flock.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.57 (talk) 19:26, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pigeons are carnivorous 

message: Not exactly the most neutral wording, IMO (and unsourced too)...
e.g. 
*"...highly negative press that pigeons have received courtesy of propaganda circulated by the pest control industry...""
*"Nonetheless pigeons have been given a bad name and that name has stuck, resulting in the public having an unnatural and unfounded fear of contact with pigeons"
*"In reality, it is these problems (ie. the soiling of buildings used for perching and roosting) that are the main reason that pigeons are controlled, not the perceived health risks"
To me, this kind of sounds like an opinion piece, contianing propaganda of another type. Any thoughts? I did consider removing the whole section... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:58, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I just deleted the whole subsection for reasons stated in the comment. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:18, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Ancient dovcotes' section 

message: I just changed the word excrement to droppings for the following reasons. Besides being biologically incorrect (not in itself a good reason since a huge percentage of words in most languages are on some level "incorrect") style guides deprecate it as sounding too formal, which combined with its biological incorrectness, make it seem ridiculous. Excrement is generally a euphemism for feces. Bird droppings contain semi-liquid feces (clear and brown) and a white semi-solid urine-like substances. I think the combination of the two is properly termed "droppings." If someone can correct me on this, please feel free. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to call bird droppings 

message: This section is too long, reads like an advertisement, and seems to contain how-to information. The part at the end about how many offspring pigeons can produce also seems a bit much, since the same could be said for nearly all other life forms. Whenever humans have colonized a new continent (back in the upper paleolithic) it only took about 500 years to fill up the entire continent with millions of people, even with an initial popular of 10 or 20 hunter-gatherers. A pair of rabbits could, under ideal conditions, produce enough offspring to fill up the entire universe a trillion times over in practically no time. In the real world, there are always limiting factors. Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern dovecotes 

message: Pigeons mate for life, and are often found in pairs during the breeding season, but usually the pigeons are gregarious preferring to exist in flocks of from 50 to 500 birds (dependent on the food supply).[4]
The flocks I've seen are much smaller. One in my neighborhood has 23. Sometimes they split up into 15 and 8. When foraging they sometimes travel in groups of 8 or 15, then split up into 2s and 3s. It seems to be a question of how much food is available, and how hard they have to hunt for it.
Feral pigeons can be seen eating grass seeds and berries in parks and gardens in the spring, but there are plentiful sources throughout the year from scavenging (e.g., dropped fast-food cartons) and they will also take insects and spiders. Additional food is also usually available from the disposing of stale bread in parks by restaurants and supermarkets, from tourists buying and distributing birdseed, etc.
Is there some documentation on restaurants and supermarkets dumping food in parks? Also, tourists aren't the only ones who buy bird seed. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:46, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Breeding: Food 

message: This article seems too tilted toward the idea that humans should try to "control" pigeon populations...when in fact many humans actually support feeding pigeons. Moreover, pigeon populations adjust naturally to the ecosystem (how much food is available; what are the risks of predators) and in many cases pigeons help clean up messes left behind by humans. With urban feral pigeons not pushing out other, "natural", species, and not harboring major disease, many feel that pigeons are OK and that having some kind of false nest where bird eggs are stolen is unethical. The article should be adjusted to indicate that there are multiple points of view and not all agree on what the best course of action for pigeon policy is.96.25.189.9 (talk) 02:54, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: Surely, by definition, Columba livia domestica not Columba livia?  Additionally, why does this page have a taxo box, I would have thought the main page on domestic pigeons would have the taxo box, this page is not about a 'species', just about a subset now living wild --Tony Wills (talk) 20:52, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Corrected species to Columba livia domestica.  I have left the page with a species info box, but strictly only the main article on domestic pigeons should have that, this is just a sub article extracted from there. --Tony Wills (talk) 12:12, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Columba livia domestica'' and not a species page 

message: This from here. I am not sure. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:49, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible copy paste 

message: The article is pretty much on the money so far as Australia is concerned. I wonder which areas it (allegedly) under-represents? Andrewa (talk) 19:45, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global perspective 

message: Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that :File:Rock Pigeon Columba livia.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on January 4, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-01-04. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 10:02, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:File:Rock Pigeon Columba livia.jpg]] to appear as POTD soon 

message: I am considering adding a section to this page on the flight of the pigeon and using images from a dissection I will be doing along with other sources to show the muscles used in flight and to discuss how those muscles are used in flight. Thoughts and comments on this are welcome. Theambivert20 (talk) 22:36, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding a section on flight? 

message: Despite the social perception as dirty and disease-ridden, pigeons are actually very clean animals and there is very little evidence to suggest that they are significant transmitters of disease. Pigeons and humans have lived in close proximity for thousands of years.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.120.133.83 (talk) 13:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  pigeons 

message: They seem to be more vulnerable to vandalism, especially from young children or people with an immature sense of humour. I guess this would be because they're kind of funny-looking, dirty, and poop a lot, all of which seem to be incredibly entertaining to small kids. These articles are probably viewed quite often as well, since pigeons are a very common, everyday bird. This page in particular has been vandalised quite a few times.
I'm not terribly confident with this area, though; I joined Wikipedia quite recently so I'm not entirely sure what action would be appropriate. Thanks. - Watermelon-lemon (talk) 11:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It is preferable that all articles on Wikipedia are editable by all persons at all times. It's a free-for-all! Page protection is employed generally as a last resort or occasionally because patterns indicate (e.g. a famous person is on trial for something) that an unusual influx of attention from a wider than normal audience is likely and that those new visitors may feel strongly about some aspect of the content without necessarily being very good at articulating it in policy/guideline friendly ways. Other pages like templates are different, as changes to them can affect millions of articles, and "high risk" templates are often preemptively, indefinitely protected. This page has had comparatively minor activity (since I've been watching) and the history doesn't look that bad really (in my humble opinion). If things ever get crazy, someone following will almost certainly ask administrators for temporary protection until things are likely to have calmed down. The best protection any article can have is plenty of conscientious people watching it, willing to fix stuff as needed, while allowing the casual passer-by to make amendments as they see fit. Crowd sourcing the sum of human knowledge requires the sum of human kind to be involved (as much as possible). Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 19:39, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Maybe this and other pigeon-related pages (i.e. Domestic Pigeon and Rock Dove) should be given Pending Changes Protection or something to reduce vandalism?

message: Very recently the "general licences"  were revoked after an inquiry established that they were legally unsound. I am in the process of collating the details with an aim to improve the content in this regard, but since I am not a one-man article writing machine, I should make the community aware of what I am working with so far, so it may address the issue in a more timely manner if it sees fit. The following: , , , , , , ,  and  are the immediately most relevant sources of info I've found (so far). I also have a bookmark folder stuffed with sources regarding their history, which is relevant, and courtship and general interest, but this is more of a heads up that an account of intention to edit. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 11:14, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK law regarding general licences