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🦁 Animal world 🦜 Birds

The pigeon

The pigeon

📖 In short

The pigeon is a calm bird we often see in squares and on rooftops, walking while bobbing its head back and forth and cooing softly: coo coo. There are about 300 kinds of pigeons and doves in the world; doves are the smaller ones.

🤩 Did you know?

  • Most pigeons are between 25 and 38 centimeters long.
  • The parents take turns sitting on the eggs, which hatch after about 17 days.
  • A female pigeon usually lays only two eggs each time.
  • A homing pigeon can fly hundreds of kilometers a day.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 It knows the way home

A homing pigeon can find its way home even when released very far away. That's why people once used them to carry little messages tied to their legs.

🔍 Pigeon milk!

For the first few days, both parents feed their chicks a food their bodies make, called “pigeon milk”. Pigeons are among the few birds that do this.

💡 It drinks differently

Most birds lift their heads to swallow water, but a pigeon dips its beak in and sucks the water up, as if drinking through a straw.

🎯 A symbol of peace

A white dove holding an olive branch is drawn as a symbol of peace and friendship between people.

📸 More pictures

The pigeon
The pigeon
The pigeon

🧩 Test yourself

1 What were homing pigeons once used for?

2 What does the white dove stand for?

3 The parents take turns sitting on the eggs, which hatch after about ?? days.

4 Which picture shows “The pigeon”?

🦁 Discover more

📷 Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons