Most probably, you have seen pigeons in the cities or particularly in gardens which can make you think that these birds are friendly to humans and do not consider them a threat.
Why Are Pigeons Not Afraid of Humans? Pigeons are not afraid of humans because they are loving and faithful companions that develop trust and affection for humans after continuous efforts of care and attention. Moreover, these sweet social creatures live close to humans and get food and treatment from them. Furthermore, they are adapted to the urban environment, send messages, and recognize their owners.
They are sweet and docile creatures that prefer to live close to humans as they have no risk of attack from them. Humans also like these small peaceful birds, which can be raised as pets.
What makes pigeons not afraid of humans?
Pigeons live with humans due to many reasons, like they are used to living in the same environment and getting food from them.
Faithful companions
People raise pigeons because they are faithful and loyal birds that do not leave their owners and return to their nests after flying for a few minutes to hours in the sky.
Moreover, you can estimate their loyalty because they spend their whole life with a single partner and mate for life. They search for a new partner only when the old one dies.
It is easy to bond strongly with these birds and earn their trust and confidence by spending more time with them. They make lifetime commitments with their partners and owners.
You can gain the trust of the pigeon by giving attention and care, which turns into a long-term relationship with these birds.
Adaption to the urban environment
They are adapted to live in cities because large buildings and cliffs provide suitable nesting habitats for these smaller birds.
Concrete and marble buildings provide hard surfaces as they like to build their nests on hard surfaces and stony structures.
They prefer to live in hidden spots having a lesser risk of predator attack because larger predators can attack them in open areas.
Moreover, these birds can live in their houses as you probably have seen their nests in the yards and windows. This is because they are both adapted to buildings and humans and are friendly.
Better recognition abilities
They are known for their extraordinary cognition abilities to recognize people in a few seconds as they have strong memories. Moreover, they can discriminate against their own images and identify owners.
They remember faces, and even untrained birds can identify people with different facial features. In addition, they are smarter and more intelligent than apes and understand human language.
Additionally, they can efficiently recognize all alphabets, a few words, or even digits. They can recognize themselves in the mirrors seen in a few bird species.
Furthermore, they have amazing visual recognition abilities that help them distinguish paintings and art styles. So, they closely associate with humans, their language, and their artistic work.
Conditioned response
Many people have trained pet pigeons to respond to a particular stimulus like food that makes them respond in a way their owner wants.
They will get rewards for the desired action that builds understanding in these birds for a detailed response.
They have associated certain gestures with food like these birds search for food on the ground when released from a cage.
So, they have adapted to human actions and know what to do in response, as loud noises can make them fly, while food in hand can attract them.
Grown as pets
Humans like to keep them as pets because they love these peaceful birds that would not disturb their sleep at night. These are diurnal birds that are not active in the nighttime and enjoy sleep.
Moreover, they are preferred to be kept as pets because they are not expensive and eat almost any type of food, including soil, grains, insects, fruits, and even snacks.
These domestic birds can live inside cages for a long time if they get proper nutrition and care from their owners and need lesser maintenance.
Send messages
They are used to sending messages to far areas as they have good homing abilities. They can easily get back to their nests by identifying the locations like rivers and buildings.
The rock dove or homing pigeons are specifically known as messengers because they can easily find their homes with the help of a magnetic field and look at the road signs.
These sweet creatures interact socially with humans who do not like to live alone. However, they need attention from owners or a partner in the cage to survive.
Seek treatment
They usually come closer to humans to seek help when they get injured and need treatment. However, birds can’t recover from the injury by themselves if it is severe.
Minor injuries can get cured with time due to their natural healing process, but broken legs and deep cuts need treatment to avoid infection.
You can provide an appropriate treatment by wiping their wounds and applying ointments for quick healing. These birds usually consider you caretakers and fly to the home gardens.
How close do pigeons come to humans?
Pigeons are not afraid of humans and come closer without fear of attack. The wild birds can come and sit in the garden to get food as they expect to get food from you.
They usually do not attack when they feel comfortable and secure, consider humans trustworthy friends, and come closer without hesitation.
Moreover, they can also sit in your hand when you keep a few grains. It depends on their level of trust in humans and how far they would sit from you.
A tamed bird can even sit on the shoulders when it feels harmless. In addition, they avoid pecking with their beaks and do not bite their hands when eating food.
What happens when a pigeon gets afraid of humans?
Most pigeons do not fear humans, but some wild birds take time to develop understanding and trust with them. They take time to figure out human behavior and learn to respond accordingly.
Moreover, they usually flap wings or flutter feathers and fly away quickly when they feel uncomfortable in a particular environment.
One of their primary instincts is to fly away whenever they evaluate a threat in their surroundings using visual signals.
They can also make loud noises, scream, and make cooing sound continuously to show aggressive behavior that acts as an alarming signal for others to avoid danger.
In the same way, they begin to fly at different positions in the garden when they find you trying to catch them.
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