r/natureismetal
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u/Minimum-Truth-6554
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7d ago
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I tried to make friends with this pigeon at work. He was very intrigued by me. I started feeding it day by day in a span of 2 weeks till the bird had a little trust in me that it began to eat directly from my hand. 2 days ago, I came back from my lunch and saw this.
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u/dogemikka 7d ago edited 7d ago
I don't get it sorry, probably missing something. Seems a normal pigeon to me. Edit: ah dude sorry, did not realise there were other pics. That's a real shame, when you arrived you probably interrupted his meal. That's really sad given the relationship you had just developed. When I was a kid I picked up a baby crow and when he grew adult I just let him free, but he would come home every evening, sleep in our garage and the next morning fly away with a piece of cheese I prepared for him. When I would come home from school I would call him with a loud "Craaa" and most of the time he would land on my shoulder after a few minutes. One day our neighbours found him dead in their pigeon shed, he probably entered the shed and pigeons killed him with their beak.
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u/Minimum-Truth-6554 7d ago
Is it normal to have a pigeon that comes to me everyday for 2 weeks without being afraid and clearly show signs of curiosity? With that logic any animal that tries to be friendly with you is just like any other?
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u/itsamemalari0 7d ago
All Pigeons are feral, meaning they descended from individuals that were kept captive/semi captive as pets for humans hence they are capable of showing domesticated tendencies. Which is why You can train pigeons similar to how you train a dog or a cat without it being too difficult. Also why they easily trust humans (because they've been around them a lot)
Now if you compare it to a truly wild animal like a hippo or a polar bear, even if you manage to domesticate them, there's always a high chance of them returning to their wild tendancies again
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u/pichael288 7d ago
Not my hippo. Hippo frank loves me
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u/ChancellorBrawny 7d ago
Right? I can't believe this guy making such short sighted generalizations. I'll bet he doesn't even own a polar bear.
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u/escrimadragon 7d ago
Seriously! There are no bad polar bears, just bad polar bear owners.
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u/ChancellorBrawny 7d ago
Prepare to be downvoted by all pit bull owners, haha.
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u/escrimadragon 7d ago
They only attack penguins ok? And… and… seals… and such. Mine was a rescue ok?!?!
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u/wonderboy_1 7d ago
You cant domesticate a hippo or polar bear, only make them tame
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u/SelfJuicing 7d ago
Why isn't it possible?
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u/jay212127 7d ago
Domestication is a long term process that requires multiple generations of selective breeding. People regularly confuse domestication with taming.
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u/hleba 7d ago
What kind of bastardized creature do you think we could create if we did domesticate a polar bear or hippo over 10,000 years?
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u/moonsun1987 7d ago
All Pigeons are feral, meaning they descended from individuals that were kept captive/semi captive as pets for humans hence they are capable of showing domesticated tendencies. Which is why You can train pigeons similar to how you train a dog or a cat without it being too difficult. Also why they easily trust humans (because they've been around them a lot)
I don't know if I imagined it all along or I actually heard it on the radio but I have a vague memory of someone (on NPR?) saying there is no such thing as a wild horse, only a feral horse. I have never looked it up but your comment reminded me of that.
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u/kyarena 7d ago
That's actually controversial, there is a small population of the Przewalski horse that probably was never domesticated, but it's hard to prove a negative. Definitely most of the "wild horses" you would think of, like mustangs, are feral though.
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u/EL0NgatedMUSKet 7d ago
what’s the difference between feral and wild?
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u/Freaux 7d ago edited 7d ago
A feral animal is a descendant of once domesticated animals, but a wild animal is one that has never been domesticated by humans.
So for example if a couple of cats from your neighborhood escaped and started breeding and creating a population of cats in the wild, they'd be considered feral.
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u/lunatickid 7d ago
That sounds about right, horses, and many of the domesticated animals came from a specific region to start with.
Are dingos considered feral or wild? IIRC dingos are descendants of dogs brought to Australia? I wonder if anybody tried to make a pet out of one.
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u/Strife72 7d ago
In my school pidgeons walked inside our buildings. It was not rare to see them in the hallway. They were not curious anymore, they became students.
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u/ChancellorBrawny 7d ago
I work on the 4th floor with a "window seat". Occasionally pigeons will land on the window sill. Often if I don't make any sudden movements they'll just chill for a few minutes and watch me while I work, about 3 ft away. Not sure if they're curious or if they need a spot to rest and are keeping an eye on me in case I try to turn them into a meal.
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u/yearightt 7d ago
killed him with their beak
Why am I laughing so hard at this
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u/cognitiveglitch 7d ago
'Beak' is the name of their turret mounted minigun.
'Feel the might of beeeeek motherfeather!'
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u/dragondan 7d ago
When I was young we found a baby bluebird that had been abandoned. We left one afternoon and left it outside in a covered cage. Upon our return there were feathers everywhere and some satisfied looking crows around.. circle of life.
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u/misteraygent 7d ago
I don't think the hawk's meal was interrupted. They used to do this around my work. If you look closely you'll see that the head and chest are gone. They prefer breast meat, and the head is probably discarded nearby.
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u/claushauler 7d ago
This actually happened right outside my window once. They'll eat the head and breast first and will come back the next day to finish off the wings and legs like it was a rotisserie chicken left in the fridge.
Gotta say they have excellent table manners for large raptors. Very neat.
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u/YeetMeatToFeet 7d ago
It'd be an absolutely perfect post for r/NotInteresting if the only pic was just a normal pigeon standing there
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u/Rotbelcher 7d ago
"Thank you for fattening up my meal, human." - Hawk
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u/Minimum-Truth-6554 7d ago
That’s exactly what i was thinking of like this mf probably was watching me feeding it and was waiting for the right moment to catch his dinner
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u/NarcanPusher 7d ago
Don’t trouble yourself too much. Pigeons and rabbits are basically nature’s potato chips. This one fulfilled a purpose, though perhaps not the one it wished for.
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u/TWITCUNT 7d ago
I seen a video on this subreddit of a pigeon slowly getting its tail nibbled off by goat whilst being completely unaware. So I think its safe to say their comparable to chips lol
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u/AaronRedwoods 7d ago
Google “pigeon nest”. That’s all you need to know about any intelligence they may have.
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u/danniejordan 7d ago
I’m glad I googled pigeon nests, genuinely hilarious how bad pigeons are at being birds.
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u/sinisterspud 7d ago
They may seem bad at being birds but if we keep growing our cities they’ll be the most successful bird on earth
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u/TayAustin 7d ago
I wonder if it's because common pigeons are basically domesticated doves and they're more feral and wild. Since they usually live on manmade structures maybe that's why they just never got good at nesting and why they're basically rats.
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u/HotColor 7d ago
they live on man made structures because in their native habitat, they like to live/nest on the faces of cliffs, hence “rock” dove. buildings and roofs are the perfect substitute for them.
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u/TayAustin 7d ago
Yea that's a good point. Probably since they're nesting on more stable surfaces they probably don't worry as much about a large nest. Or they're just dumb
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u/CLLRHEAT 7d ago
The rock doves that common pigeons are descended from nest in cavities in cliff faces. The sparse nests they build make a bit more sense in that context.
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u/Aethelric 7d ago
Yeah, pigeon nesting behaviors are not "stupid" anymore than any other bird's is "smart". The behavior was well-adapted to their original habitat. We removed them from there, domesticated them, and then make fun of them for adapting the best they can to the new conditions.
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u/icelandic_drunkard 7d ago
Start feeding the hawk.
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u/BustinArant 7d ago
Quite the upgrade in the bird heirarchy. I heard an ostrich can kick a person to death, so maybe try for one of those eventually.
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u/oh_Rip 7d ago
The hand of man, made pigeon weak.
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u/Phuck-yeet 7d ago
The hand of God, made England weak
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7d ago
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u/BokuNoSudoku 7d ago edited 7d ago
Why did you do such a thing? Such kindnesses will mean nothing, his path is set. Giving him what he has not earned is like pouring sand into his hands. And would that be a kindness? What if by surviving another day, he brings a greater darkness upon another? The Force binds all things. The slightest push, the smallest touch, sends echoes throughout life. Even an act of kindness may have more severe repercussions than you know or can see. By giving him something he has not earned, perhaps all you have helped him become is a target. Seeing another elevated often brings the eyes of others who suffer. And perhaps in the end, all you have wrought is more pain. And that is my lesson to you. Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clenched fist.
Edit: this is a quote from a Star Wars game (kotor ii) if you guys can’t tell.
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u/WHOLESOME-DUNG-EATER 7d ago
You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
You didn't grow.
You didn't improve.You took a shortcut and gained nothing.
You experienced a hollow victory.
Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.It's sad that you don't know the difference.
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u/WriterV 7d ago
What do you expect the pigeon to do, punch the bird of prey? lol
It would've been caught regardless. At least with /u/Minimum-Truth-6554 's help, it had a few days of placidity before going out.
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u/boy_dingo 7d ago
Well, now that you fed it, you can start making friends with it too
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u/Whind_Soull 7d ago
Awhile back I actually did this with a hawk in my back yard. He would take strips of raw porkchop from my hand. I wore safety glasses and leather gloves, and never tried to actually pet him or hold him or anything.
Made me feel like the world's most metal Disney princess. It made friends' jaws drop when they came over to visit.
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u/Duke-Kickass 7d ago
This is straight up “Rick and Morty”-level unintended consequences.
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u/Muninwing 7d ago
When we checked into the hospital for my daughter’s birth, we looked out the window and saw a hawk catch, kill, and dismember a pigeon. It was kinda neat, if a bit much. Took it as a sign.
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u/Uplifting_penguin 7d ago
A sign of what?? 💀😭
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u/Muninwing 7d ago
That she was going to be a handful.
We did name her after a Valkyrie…
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u/NeonSwank 7d ago
Which one, if you don’t mind me asking
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u/metalmermaiden 7d ago
I know how that feels! I went to court to file responses for a custody grab, and there was this big, black, dead dog right at the entrance. There was vending machine food around it, like people tried to help. I took it as an omen, too, but I was wrong, thank fuck.
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u/dont_touch_my_rum 7d ago
Level one passed, now befriend the hawk!
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u/goodguybolt 7d ago
Congratulations! Your Pigeon evolved into a hawk.
(Yeah, I didn't swipe past the second pic)
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u/grass-snake-40 7d ago
This is why it's not really kind to feed wild animals. Makes them distracted and predictable and easy targets for predators.
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u/texasrigger 7d ago
There's no reason to believe OP's feeding made it any more susceptible to the hawk. To get to that size the hawk ate countless other birds and animals and presumably those weren't hand fed. "Find food" and "avoid predators" are two different behaviors.
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u/grass-snake-40 7d ago
yeah but when hunting, predators will look for prey that is behaving abnormally. a pigeon that waits for a hand out in the same spot every day is going to stand out more, the hawk may have even observed it for some time before deciding it was well worth the effort
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u/texasrigger 7d ago
Pigeons already tend to hang out in the same general area. Have you not ever noticed the same birds in the same place day after day? Their natural range from their roost is fairly small and they have a strong instinct to return to the same area as well as a complex set of mechanics to ensure they can find that same area no matter what. That's how homing pigeons are a thing. A hawk in a city is looking for a meal of convenience and city pigeons as a whole are about as convenient as they come.
Speaking of homing pigeons - when training or racing pigeons it's just accepted that a certain percentage just aren't going to make it back because predation on them is just so commonplace and that's with racing birds on the move. A good bird not only has the instincts to get home but also the skill to avoid predators and those guys are the exceptions, not the norm.
I'm a game bird breeder and have raised hundreds of birds from completely domestic species to completely wild ones but I also live in an area that gets literally hundreds of thousands of birds of prey at certain times of year and predation is just a reality no matter what. Young hawks in particular don't even necessarily look for a safe/easy meal, they think with their stomach (which is why there are far more young hawks than adults, most don't last very long).
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u/beepborpimajorp 7d ago
I recently started birdwatching and man, I know they're not exactly the same but the mourning doves that show up to my ground feeders are genuinely some of the slowest, most clueless birds I've ever seen. Where something like a bluejay is smart as hell and will actively chase threats or warn other birds, the mourning doves will just mill around on the ground even after all the other birds have sensed something and fled. Like "gee gosh golly how nice of those other birds to leave all this food just for me" while wandering around in the open.
Sometimes I go outside and see a large amount of feathers which tells me all I need to know. I've also seen clumps of what I think were owl feathers (they had that very distinct shape to them) and whatever it tried to catch took a chunk out of it. Does it bum me out? I mean, a little. But it's a natural predator to prey relationship. Raptors have to eat too. So do wild snakes, etc. And I like to think the birds I feed prefer the tiny risk of potentially being snatched after dark (which would happen anywhere) to be able to have access to a regular feeding/watering site during the day that keeps them safe from invasive predators like cats. I don't mind natural predators, but cats hunting my songbirds drives me up a wall and I've had to chase a few out of my yard.
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u/texasrigger 7d ago
I know they're not exactly the same but the mourning doves
Not exactly the same but definitely in the same family as pigeons (columbidae) while those Jay's are corvidae which is the same family that includes crows and ravens which are famously smart. You are getting both ends of the bird intelligence spectrum at your feeder for sure and I'll bet it's a lot of fun watching them and seeing the difference in behavior!
Yeah, cats are the worst.
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u/beepborpimajorp 7d ago
That makes a ton of sense. My goal was to attract some jays and crows to hopefully do the job of chasing cats away while I'm busy, since I know they're so damned smart and very territorial. It seems to have worked because I get a jay duo coming to raid the feeders of the mealworms before any of the other birds can get to them lol. No crows, but I don't usually see them around neighborhood homes here anyway.
I'm surprised at how fun a hobby feeding/birdwatching has turned into, but it's so great! At first I only got things like cardinals to show up. (And squirrels, of course. Always squirrels no matter what.) Since I had a tube feeder and was using sunflower/safflower. I added in some ground feeders, a platform feeder, and a suet feeder and shook up the type of feed I use. A special lower cost mix for the squirrels in one feeder, then a mix (protein, nuts, seeds, etc.) in the other feeders though I keep the tube feeder sunflower/safflower only for the smaller songbirds because it's so easy for them to get bowled over at the ground feeders by grackles and squirrels.
It took a couple of weeks but now my back yard is like spring break party central. All kinds of birds eating/using the bird bath after I put food out. And I think a few of them have actually spent the breeding season in my trees and stuff raising young which is like the ultimate compliment that they feel safe here.
Setting up 1 feeder and a bird bath was like a throwaway thing I did to keep myself occupied while my dog was going through his final weeks. But now it's become a project I'm proud of. The birds have a fun place to hang out with reliable food/clean water, and I get to watch them during the day when I WFH so it helps keep my stress levels down.
It is funnier now that it's molting season though. I have a cardinal buddy that clearly roosts somewhere nearby because he will be out at the feeders before I've even come back inside and closed the door. Early bird gets the mealworm I guess. And he hangs around the house sometimes during the day, I can see him through the windows I keep open for my canaries. One day he was chilling outside the window and I was like, "What the, does he have mites? What's wrong with his head?" then I was like "oh right...after breeding season comes molting season." Poor thing is bald. And a lot of the other birds have been losing their feathers more too. But there's something extra sad looking about a molting cardinal, lmao.
Anyway, sorry to ramble at you. It's just been such a fun side-project and I've been able to observe so many different birds' natural behaviors now. It can be so fulfilling to go from not being able to see any wildlife, to seeing a ton of it so active and flourishing around you.
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u/QlippethTheQlopper 7d ago
Not so sure about this one bud. Where there is prey there will be predators. That pigeon could've just as easily died looking for food elsewhere.
Sure, if you keep going to the same place to feed animals you will eventually see predators kill them. That's nature though, you're just seeing it now because you're surrounding yourself by prey daily.
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u/gruesomeflowers 7d ago
We had an infestation of pigeons in the warehouse for years at my work..once a hawk (or falcon?) moved into the area they were all gone in a matter of a month. It was Quite the bird murdering nature special. Op did not influence that birds life outcome.
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u/PoorFishKeeper 7d ago
Pigeons aren’t really “wild” animals though. They are pets and the ones you find outside are all feral. So they will always be “predictable and easy targets” because they aren’t built for survival in the wild.
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u/beepborpimajorp 7d ago
Pigeons and mourning doves are easy targets for raptors regardless of whether humans are helping them are not. Have you even been around one or observed their natural behavior? They are utterly clueless and have the most slowed reaction times of any bird I've ever observed. They literally do not GAF unless you are right on top of them. And in my yard where the other birds (of multiple types) will flee in a massive flock if even one of them senses something off, the mourning doves will still just be casually wandering around on the ground (because they are ground feeders) looking for food. And when they do leave it's a slow takeoff and they just go perch on like the wire to the power pole which has absolutely no shelter the way the two massive trees or shrubs provide, which is why the other birds go to those instead.
They are genuinely dumb birds and it wouldn't take much for them to fall victim to a raptor looking for a good meal. I mean I think they're cute as the dickens and a mourning dove's call reminds me of my childhood, but they're dumb which makes them easy targets.
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u/LiminalStates22 7d ago
Sparrowhawk - murder bird. They take prey mid-air in my garden, mostly tweety birds but have seen them take rock doves before. Their bigger cousin, the Goshawk is also a ruthlessly efficient death machine, takes rabbits/pheasants.
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u/redtailred 7d ago
This is a Cooper’s hawk. Close relative to the goshawk and a North American species
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u/strraand 7d ago
Is he ok?
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u/Quisey3 7d ago
Don't feed wild animals. They'll come back looking for an easy meal.
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u/EnvironmentLimp7602 7d ago
Technically city pigeons aren't truly wild, they kinda just follow humans around at this point
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u/texasrigger 7d ago
They never really were. Pigeon's are one of the oldest domesticated animals with records of them going back to Egypt and Mesopotamia. The city pigeons you see are all feral decendents of those domesticated animals.
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7d ago
That's what happened with stray dogs in my city. There was no such problem in the past, but nowadays loving stray animals became popular so ignorant people started feeding them. Cats don't cause much problem but dogs, they form gangs, attack people and make noise at night. I absolutely hate them and the people who caused them to overpopulate.
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u/jeraldtherapist 7d ago edited 7d ago
yea dogs start growling at people for food cats just get near me and start meowing
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u/AsyanongAmbiguous 7d ago
I would cry about it, tbh. Even though I know how nature works
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u/escrowbanker 7d ago
It gets worse, Lloyd.
My parakeet Petey...
Yeah?
...he's dead.
Aw...
Oh, man.
I'm sorry, Harry.
What happened?
His head fell off.
His head fell off?
Yeah, he was pretty old.
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u/DBrownbomb 7d ago
Pigeon was caught befriending a human and had to pay the ultimate price. Those are the rules in the bird kingdom. He showed you the ramifications to let it be known!
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u/Sideways-Pumpkin 7d ago
Immature Cooper’s hawk. They’re pretty common around residential/commercial areas for this reason. They LOVE birds. Pretty cool birds to hunt with too. I’ve seen one take a pheasant (with the help of its falconer of course).
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u/RandyNAngelCity 7d ago
And has OP learned anything from this episode?
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u/texasrigger 7d ago
What would you expect him to learn? That predators exist? Pigeons already associate people with food, they are the feral descendants of domesticated animals. OP's feeding likely had nothing to do with the birds ultimate fate.
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u/-Bushmeat 7d ago
Sorry about your pigeon. Really cool to see a Cooper’s hawk that close though, they’re really twitchy.
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u/Brilliant-Yard-6201 7d ago •
If you keep doing that with pigeons in a couple of months, you'll have a hawk friend!