A temporal analysis of the foraging flights of feral pigeons (Columba liviaf.domestica) from three Italian cities

Abstract

Foraging flights of feral pigeon populations may differ in occurrence and extent from town to town. In this paper, the annual pattern of such flights from three medium-sized Italian cities (Venice, Parma and Lucca) is described and compared with that recorded for a Mediterranean population of wild rock doves from Sardinia. The data provide evidence of the similarity of these flights both within urban populations and between feral pigeons and wild rock doves. On the other hand, the presented results point to a noticeable flexibility of this behaviour, whose features seem finely adapted to the environmental features of an urban habitat and its surroundings. In particular, the distribution of food resources and of the annual trend of reproductive attempts appear to exert a leading role in shaping the characteristics of these flights.

Feral Pigeons: Problems, Dynamics and Control Methods

“…The distribution of food resources and the annual trend of reproductive attempts appear to exert a leading role in shaping the characteristics of these flights, as previously suggested both for feral pigeons (Soldatini et al, 2006) and for wild rock doves (Baldaccini et al, 2000 and references therein). The distances covered in such commuting flights vary between 3 and 20 km (see Rose et al, 2006 for a review), mainly depending on the landscape and distribution of food resources (Hetmanski et al, 2010;Soldatini et al, 2006). These foraging flights can be a significant source of damage for agriculture which adds to the damages done by colonies resident in the countryside.…”

“…< 900 pigeons/day recorded in October 2004; Baldaccini et al, unpubl. data) and birds rely on food resources within the city, favoured by the extremely high tourist presence during spring-summer months (Soldatini et al, 2006). On the other hand, the number of commuting pigeons we observed in Pisa is quite high (e.g.…”

“…On the contrary, the management of food resources should be less effective in cities where most birds fly for food to adjacent agricultural areas (see e.g. Soldatini et al, 2006). In this last case, bird scaring devices and reflecting strips as well as gas cannons are extensively used by farmers, but with a very low long term effectiveness.…”

Urban Environment Use by Speckled (Columba Guinea) and Feral (Columba Livia) Pigeons on the University of South Africa’s Muckleneuk Campus

“…Pigeons may be aware of the lower agricultural availability, and therefore do not waste costly energy undertaking long distance flights towards the farmlands when they are required to forage locally, thus remaining on buildings for longer periods. Feral pigeons rely heavily on deliberate feeding and scraps (Brown, 1969;Little, 1994), with dry maize kernels available during harvesting (May to August) to a lesser extent (Soldatini et al, 2006). Of the resident pigeon population on campus, feral pigeons constitute 16%.…”

“…The counting of adult and juvenile pigeons took place during the pigeons' bimodal foraging activity periods, which have been recorded to peak in the morning and afternoon (Krebs, 1974;Rose et al, 2006;Soldatini et al, 2006). These counts took place early morning during the first two hours after sunrise and again in the evening during the last two hours before sunset, once a week for 52 weeks.…”