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News tagged with pigeons

Indonesia reports second bird flu death this year

Indonesia on Friday reported its second human death from bird flu this year, with the death of a five-year-old girl who recently lost her relative to the deadly virus.

Medicine & Health / Diseases

created Jan 20, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

How the 'street pigeon' got its fancy on

Pigeons display spectacular variations in their feathers, feet, beaks and other physical traits, but a new University of Utah study shows that visible traits don't always coincide with genetics: A bird from ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 19, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Man dies from bird flu in Indonesia: officials

A 24-year-old Indonesian man infected with bird flu died in the capital Jakarta, the health ministry said Tuesday, in the country's third fatal case in three months.

Medicine & Health / Diseases

created Jan 10, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Like monkeys, pigeons can put numbers in order

(PhysOrg.com) -- Pigeons are on par with primates in their numerical abilities, according to new University of Otago research appearing in the leading international journal Science.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 22, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Study finds pigeons use bodies to turn rather than wing force

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a rather surprising turn of events, it appears pigeons use their body to make sharp turns, rather than stronger wing strokes when flying. This bit of news comes from Ivo Ros of Harvard ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 29, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 14 | with audio podcast report

Secrets of flocking revealed

Watching thousands of birds fly in a highly coordinated, yet leaderless, flock can be utterly baffling to humans. Now, new research is peeling back the layers of mystery to show how exactly they do it -- and ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 26, 2011 | popularity 3 / 5 (3) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Milking the pigeon: extracting the mechanisms involved

Pigeons, flamingos and male emperor penguins are all able to produce "milk" in their crop to feed their chicks. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genomics uses new technology to stu ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 18, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1

Pigeons never forget a face

New research has shown that feral, untrained pigeons can recognise individual people and are not fooled by a change of clothes.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 03, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Auto-pilots need a birds-eye view

New research on how birds can fly so quickly and accurately through dense forests may lead to new developments in robotics and auto-pilots.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 01, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Evolutionary reasons for believing in luck

How far will you go to avoid bad luck? Do you avoid walking under ladders, carry lucky charms, or perhaps instead perform special rituals before important meetings or sporting events?

Biology / Evolution

created Jun 07, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Study shows how external ecological communities can affect the coevolution of hosts and their parasites

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a novel experiment running over three years, evolutionary biologists Christopher Harbison and Dale Clayton, both of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, sought to show that a certain ...

Biology / Evolution

created May 24, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1 | with audio podcast report

I know you, bad guy! Magpies recognize humans

Most people who have had the experience of having pet animals in their houses have the gut feeling that the animals can "recognize" us. They seem to recognize our faces, our voices and our smell. One way or another, they ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 27

The great Dodo weight debate

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus), a pigeon type bird that went extinct over 300 years ago is raising debate these last few months on just how slender or plump it really was. When the Dodo bird w ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 18, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast report

Research shows that some features of human face perception are not uniquely human

When it comes to picking a face out of a police lineup, would you guess that you would use some of the same processes a pigeon might use?

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 11, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Birds use right nostril to navigate

(PhysOrg.com) -- Pigeons rely mainly on their olfactory sense when they navigate. Young pigeons learn to recognize environmental odours carried by the winds into the loft and to use these odours to find their ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 03, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Columbidae

Pigeons and doves constitute the bird family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerines. In general terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably. In ornithological practice, there is a tendency for "dove" to be used for smaller species and "pigeon" for larger ones, but this is in no way consistently applied, and historically the common names for these birds involve a great deal of variation between the terms "dove" and "pigeon." This family occurs worldwide, but the greatest variety is in the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones. Young doves and pigeons are called "squabs."

Pigeons and doves are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and have short slender bills with a fleshy cere. The species commonly referred to just as "pigeon" is the Feral Rock Pigeon, common in many cities.

Doves and pigeons build relatively flimsy nests from sticks and other debris, which may be placed in trees, on ledges or on the ground, depending on species. They lay one or two eggs, and both parents care for the young, which leave the nest after 7 to 28 days. Doves feed on seeds, fruit and plants. Unlike most other birds (but see flamingo), the doves and pigeons produce "crop milk", which is secreted by a sloughing of fluid-filled cells from the lining of the crop. Both sexes produce this highly nutritious substance to feed to the young.

For more information about Columbidae, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.