The pigeon-personalities of Freeport wild bird supply
with my last lab note ending on a bit of a downer, I thought it would be fun to delve into some of the more interesting observations made at my first trapping site. While this study focuses on overall trends in populations, after watching pigeons for several hours, it was hard not to notice the individuals. Here are some of the individual birds that really stood out to me:
SIC*: MEP27 "Name": Goldie epithets: "tiny eagle" "Goldie the enigma"
*specimen identification code
"Goldie the enigma" or as he should be called, MEP27, was true to his given name as he had one of the most odd plumage patterns I have ever seen in a pigeon. As a big part of my study is tracking plumage types in wild pigeons, I needed to unravel exactly what Goldie was. Pigeon coloration is a highly heritable trait, with the specifics of its inheritance quite well known. because of this, types of pigeon plumage can be divided into specific categories, however none of them seemed to fit Goldie. despite of this, I still needed to categorize MEP27
let's examine the evidence:
Goldie is a juvenile, meaning that his coloration may not be fully developed
the other birds in Goldie's flock have plumage types similar to those seen in goldie, such as checker ( see the partial-bird in the right corner of the photo for an example of this trait) and bronzewing
Goldie has a great deal of "bright" coloration, such as the bronze coloration on his breast, this might be a clue
Goldie's wings appear to have some sort of modified checker pattern.
After quite a bit of searching and questioning pigeon-fancier groups, it turns out Goldie's wing checking is key, it was decided that Goldie is a juvenile bird containing both the common "checker" color pattern and the rarer "bronzewing" pattern, he may also have some of the genes for an overall "brown" coloration. this is my guess what Goldie will likely look like when he gets his adult plumage:
SIC: MEP24 "name": domino epithet: "the loner"
Pigeons are typically consider to be social birds, they spend almost all of their time in flocks, preening, eating and sleeping together. this was the case for most of the birds in this population, except for domino. domino's feeding schedule seemed utterly independent from that of the other birds, he would swoop in, take his fill (not going anywhere near my trap or course) the leave a whole 20 or so minutes before the rest of the flock. usually, when I saw one bird land on the feeders, it was a sign to me that more where on their way, but with domino, this was not the case and I did not have to pay much attention to domino's visits.
here is a typical scenario of one of domino's feeding visits:
Mom: there's a pigeon on the feeder!
Me: (reaches to turn on the remote control net trigger)..... oh, it's just domino.
mom: sorry for the false alarm
SIC: MEP30 "name": buck
I generally try to avoid anthropomorphizing birds, especially in studies, but because I am writing a lab note-about pigeon "personalities" and giving individual birds names I think It would be ok to make one quick statement about MEP30, or Buck.
Buck is a bit desperate for love.
for nearly the entire duration of the study, buck was performing the typical pigeon "bow and coo" display towards any female pigeon that was nearby. However, no one was really buying and and no copulation or allopreening was observed. only one other male was noted displaying, all of the others where seen already paired up with a female or where too young to breed.
SIC: MEP26 "name": spot
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!
Lady Macbeth, trying to clean an imaginary blood stain, Macbeth (5.1.25)**
In, darn Spot!, In, I say!
Sarah Rackowski, trying to catch a pigeon, lab note 7 (1.1.52)**
if you read my last lab note, you may have read of two failed trapping attempts, one caused by a bird who would walk around the edge of my trap, but not enter safe trapping range. This bird was Spot. For his safety, I could not push the trigger of my net, but the whole time I was waiting (and possibly having a minor cardiac event from the tension) Spot would weave in and out of safe trapping range, even bringing his mate along for the ride. spot was probably the most daring of the flock after the first capture, but like the rest of his brethren, not willing to take to much of a chance on my net, an object that had proved untrustworthy before. ** I probably quoted this wrong, my english teacher would take off points for this, but MY ENGLISH TEACHER IS NOT HERE RIGHT NOW...... excuse my little fit of liberation ;)
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