We have seen pigeons with a puffing chest in the garden or windowsill, mainly when resting. Their necks appear broader when they fluff neck feathers by extending.
Why Do Pigeons Puff Their Chest? Pigeons puff their chest to enjoy the warmth, show anger or happiness, clean their bodies, reduce body temperature, threaten predators, and impress their mating partners. Moreover, it can also occur when they feel sick or prepare themselves for sleep by relaxing their feathers.
It is interesting to explore the behavior of pigeons as they keep performing varying acts and look beautiful with puffy chests, bobbing heads, and kissing each other.
What does it mean when a pigeon puffs its chest?
Pigeons express their feelings through behavior, as there are different reasons for these birds to puff their chest while sitting on the grass.
Enjoy warmth
A pigeon puffs up its chest when it needs warmth in cold weather, which helps create an insulating layer on the body. It allows them to trap the body heat by fluffing the feathers.
One of their prominent strategy to keep themselves warm in cold winters is shivering or fluffing the feathers of their chest. They have to burn more energy to maintain their body temperature.
They trap pockets of air around their bodies that can help keep them warm as the air between skin and wings gets warm due to the high metabolic rate of their bodies.
Preparing for relaxing sleep
They can be preparing for a sound sleep when you see them puffing up their chest at night. This behavior is also observed during the daytime as they enjoy short naps during the day.
It helps them enjoy a relaxing nap when they fluff their feathers because it provides warmth to their bodies. It seems like they are stretching their body muscles by extending feathers.
Some of these birds fluff their feathers on their cheeks in addition to puffing their chest to drift off quickly. They can create a cozy environment to enjoy their sleep at night or day naps.
Show anger against invaders
Pigeons are social creatures but territorial by nature and do not tolerate any interference in their nests. They show aggression towards invaders to protect their eggs and territories.
Accordingly, they fluff feathers to show anger for such interference in their territories. They can locate predatory birds and animals from a distance and fly away quickly.
In addition, they make themselves look bigger by changing their body shape from long and slender to round, which can help threaten predators and keep them at a distance.
Groom or clean bodies
They can groom their bodies by stretching out their bodies and extending their feathers in an outward direction while puffing their chests.
It removes dirt and debris from the body that remains stuck to their bodies if pigeons do not shake their bodies and preen them.
Moreover, this preening process also involves the organization of feathers in an alignment to promote better flying, as dirty feathers can hinder efficient flight.
Uropygial glands are present under their tails, secreting an oily material that can keep their feathers in good condition. They smear oil on the plumage that provides insulation from water.
Reduce body temperature
This puffing can help reduce the body temperature by allowing cool air to pass through the feathers and lowering their temperature during hot weather.
It is a quick method to avoid dehydration and sickness during summer because excessive exposure to hot air can lead to sweating, resulting in loss of energy from their bodies.
Moreover, it is essential for pigeons to keep their bodies at an ideal temperature if they want to avoid illness and other related problems.
So, they create space between feathers to create air pockets and allow a cool breeze to pass through them so that their body warmth is reduced to some extent.
Sign of dominance
The puffing of the chest indicates pride in pigeons as they can show dominance to other pigeons or birds in the surrounding areas or nearby territories.
It is commonly seen in males when moving around female birds, which helps build a strong image of their competency and dominant nature.
She chooses a male bird that can successfully impress her with an aerial display or chasing behavior after grabbing her attention.
The females mate with the male pigeons that are strong and competent enough to deal with the responsibility of parenting.
In addition, they can show dominance over organisms belonging to the same or different species to ensure their protection from their deadly attacks.
Feeling sick
It can indicate sickness or disease in pigeons when they do not feel well due to illness or fatigue after flying for many hours in hot weather.
Sometimes, they do not feel energetic enough to enjoy the flight and sit on the ground with a puffing chest. The puffing of feathers is not a diseased condition if it persists for only a few minutes.
You should show concern for a pet if its throat or chest remains in such condition for long. Looking at other symptoms can help you know about their severity as they usually do not close their eyes.
Moreover, they cannot speak using words to tell their owners about their illness, but they make sounds and perform some actions, as their behaviors have deep meanings.
Invite mating partners
This behavior can invite their partner for intimacy as the males feel excited to see the females and try to impress her.
Accordingly, they increase body size by fluffing feathers and show their willingness to mate and transfer sperm during a cloacal kiss with the female.
Birds have different ways of showing happiness; some pigeons enjoy higher flights in the air, or a few move on the ground, while some sit on the ground with puffy chests.
They extend feathers and make their necks appear rounded when excited because their bodies feel relaxed in this posture.
How do pigeons puff their chest?
Puffing of the chest means inflation of crops present close to the throat. It can expand slightly from its original size by contracting the muscles when they extend its feathers.
It causes the expansion of pigeon chests or crop regions, resulting in bigger bodies when their clean feathers look more beautiful.
Some other changes also occur in their bodies when they puff up their chest by inflating their crops, including the spreading of wings that help increase the size to the maximum extent.
Furthermore, this behavior allows them to impress their mating partners because they look so beautiful with expanded crops and erect feathers.
Threatening predators trying to get closer to their eggs, babies, and nests becomes easier by showing this behavior when they enter territories.
How often do pigeons puff their chest?
Pigeons puff their chest frequently, but its frequency depends on their needs, interactions, and environmental factors, like a threat of attack.
This behavior is typical among adult pigeons because they are commonly seen expanding their bodies before courtship to show their competency as a parent.
They often do this because this behavior is associated with multiple reasons, as they expand their chest when feeling happy, threatened, excited, etc.
However, the baby pigeons or squabs do not show this behavior frequently because they do not engage in a courtship. They fluff feathers when they detect movements in their nests.
These squabs are not adapted to the external environment, so they feel fearful of objects and slight movement close to their bodies.
