# Examples of pigeon intelligence



## TitanicWreck (Jun 12, 2003)

Some claim pigeons neither feel nor think, but my daily observations of the many pigeons living in my city of Boston Massachusetts have given me plenty of examples of visual proof that pigeons are indeed intelligent.
They have complex emotions, and each pigeon, in my opinion, has a unique personality. Some are social, some are loners. Some are friendly, some are hostile. Some are curious, some are timid.
I work on a ferry boat, and observed a pigeon finding a seeming inacessable nook under a dock as a place for her nest-This pigeon did indeed contemplate and think about the placement of her nest- My coworkers insisted this pigeon certainly couldnt think, but rather operated on blind instinct alone.
But the visual evidence suggested otherwise....

City pigeons seem almost quasi tame, in that they don't fear humans, but will quickly walk away of course to avoid being stepped on.

These birds are quite remarkable, and it never ceases to amaze me the complexity of the pigeon mind..


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## Lin Hansen (Jan 9, 2004)

Hi TitanicWreck,

Nice to see you back and posting....it's been awhile.

Linda


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## Reti (Jul 20, 2003)

I totally agree with you.
I love to watch my 10 pet pigeons. Each one of them is so unique in behavior, personality, intelligence, looks, vocalization. 
They are amazing.

Reti


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## TitanicWreck (Jun 12, 2003)

Hi Lin
good to be back-
Ive been around, ive just been lurking...


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi Titanicwreck, 


We do well to forsake questions of intelligence, because, our cultural adaptations have so eroded our own, as to make questions about it frought with an irony ~ we do not posess the right kind of 'Intelligence' to note those of others, nor to note what we ourselves have lost.

"Life" itself IS 'Intelligence' occupied with those forms it assumes.

The limitations of any form are not the measure of anything else.


The nicest or highest performance Sprts Cars of any make, are ill suited to hauling Logs on Farm roads, and a 1931 Ford AA Truck with four wheel chains, can do just dandy on the Farm and not so well on the race track...and it does not make them 'less', it merely reminds us to respect those forms of any kind, for what they do well.

Each is it's own measure...

Mostly, our species is so oblivious to the 'intelligence' of other species, because we do not communicate 'with' them very well generally.

What we do not 'see' about them, and what we do not see about ourselves, is the loss of what needs to be there TO 'see'...without which, no real appreciation or 'proof' will ever convince...and with which, no proof is needed.



Phil
Las Vegas


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## Pigeonpal2002 (Jul 27, 2002)

Well Said, Phil !!!


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Oh!

Thanks Brad...

A little ramble...

All of this is of course very interesting, to glimpse, wonder of, or sometimes see or find out about...Pigeons, or any of endless other Creatures / Beings...or ourselves...

Long and old closed-mindednesses still haunt something terrible...occulate...

"Dumb Animals", archaicly, meant only that they did not posess 'Human' speech...(or really, that we did not posess the acuity of Mind to understand "them") and it never meant un-intelligent. 'Dumb' meant 'mute' literally, as the term 'dumb Bell' for those Bell shaped Weights once used for excercises, which did not posess a clacker or interior element to make them ring.

But 'mute' is something which almost no 'Beasts' ever were or are...

What attributes or qualities may we, or do we most value? And if finding them in others, do we equate with 'intelligence'?

Really, as far as I can tell, the term 'intelligence' is a euphemism for cultural savvy, or, for idiomatic value collusions with whoever is in a position of attributing 'intelligence' to someone else.

But, maybe what we mean most, is whether or not we communicate "with" others in constructive or inclusive ways...in reciprocal or shared ways...

Technically, as far as I know, 'thinking' - in the terms we know it generally as a society - is a disguise for 'worry' or inconfidence ( that is, to proceed without faith, without sufficient insight or understanding, ) or neurosis, far far more than that it is anything else, or anything more. It is an occupation which consoles or distracts, or muddles-on as it may, for the loss of something deeper and trusted which may be Lived...for other modes of knowing, lost or dimmed...


What method of Reproductive gestations or embryonic developement, can we imagine, which is more clean, more elegant, more direct, more robust while being alo delicate, or could in any way bespeak of a more 'intelligent' plan and intentional, care-full design...than the 'Egg' we associate with Birds?

Certainly not 'our' methods...!


Lol...


Phil
Las Vegas


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## auntisocial (Apr 25, 2005)

I've been amazed at the quickness our little ones have caught on to things. Just a few taps of a finger near their new solid food and we had them "pecking" in no time! I've also enjoyed watching their personalities develop -- DEFINITELY have their own ways of handling situations. This has been a great experience.


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## photokev (Apr 15, 2005)

I think the issue isn't that people see pigeons or other animals as unintelligent, it's that they CHOOSE to see them as unintelligent. 

In the UN, when a countries actions are termed "genocide" and that actual word is used, it's mandatory for the world body to act because by definition, genocide is the most horrible thing a country can do. HOWEVER, the UN in an effort to avoid using the word and having to take action, uses terms like ethnic cleansing, etc... It means the same thing but somehow in peoples minds it doesn't warrant taking action. It's just semantics and a good example of people living in "mass denial" It isn't GENOCIDE so it can't be that bad, right?

Where I'm going with all this is that if society consistently applied the words intelligent, feeling, or loving to animals, large segments of our own behavior start to be illuminated in a not so pleasant light.

How could a breeder look at a deaf dalmation puppy and think "wow, a dog has such a great capacity for love and intelligence" and then kill it because he knows it won't sell.

How could a man look at a 2 week old seal pup and acknowledge the maternal bond between the pup and it's mother and then murder it just to take it's fur.

How could a person look at a pigeon and think "dang, we humans are eliminating their habitat but they've learned to live with us, that's pretty smart" and then kill them with a broom because they're a "pest".

They couldn't. That's why some people continue to cling to the idea that animals are unfeeling and incapable of intelligence. If they acknowledge animals DO feel and DO have intelligence they would have to treat them more as equals. 

Phil alludes to a communications barrier and that's so true. Imagine if a primate actually learns to talk. I would be embarrassed for my species to have someone sit down with it and tell it all the things we've done to the planet and the "lesser" species on it. I think we all would.


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi photokev,


You mention...

"Phil alludes to a communications barrier and that's so true. Imagine if a primate actually learns to talk. I would be embarrassed for my species to have someone sit down with it and tell it all the things we've done to the planet and the "lesser" species on it. I think we all would."


Yes...

Or too, thay all 'talk' all the time, in many ways at-once..paralinguistics, sounds, mental-images and psychic information things...

Some naturalists who have studied various Sparrows and other Song Birds have laborously made discoveries about their 'songs' and chiprings, and 'translated' these Birds vocalizations to include information about people. This in rural areas anyway or in Forrests or glens and so on. Where, chirping for anyone to hear who is interested, they tell if people are comeing near, how many people, what ages and genders, whethere or not the people have long-arms, whether the long-arms are shotguns of rifles...and certainly much much more, but the 'translators' got that far with it anyway after years of analysis.

I remember knowing something about this when I was a little kid. I spent all the time i could at a Creek near where we lived. The Birds, I knew, were often telling things about what was going on, and the Water Moccassins and others knew what they were singing-chirping-announceing about when it concerned them to do so. A Bird would chirp something, and many of the Watermoccassins aould liesurely depart for the reeds and marchy areas. Or, a different chirp-thing, and many of them would dive quickly into hideing...allways these chirps or sounds of a Bird of that kind, announced people about to arrive, and people who sometimes carried baseball bats or .22 rufles or 4-10 shotguns who were intending to kill the Snakes for 'fun'.

Crows and Wolves communicate well in many areas of their co-operation and interests, with the Crows flying to the Wolves to mention to them of various animals locations or numbers or conditions, or hunting prospects, and sharing in them after the kill...as well as who knows how much more about whatever else.

As far as I can tell, in all of so called 'Nature', there is vast, endless, constant communication between interested parties of all species communicating with eachother.

It is we who do not listen well...or, it is we who have centered our awarenesses into areas of mind which are removed from these things.

The researcher Rupert Shelldrake has written some Books dealing with how 'Dogs' for one example, know when their masters are electing to come home.

I almost allways knew when my Cat or Dog was on their way home from their being out for their wanderings, and usually, I could feel this accurately enough to open the door just as they came around the corner. even if I felt their turning to some home an hour earlier.

Same with if my girlfriend was arriveing, whether or not there was any agreement or pattern to it. I'd be working, and out of the blue feel a certain knowing, then I would wait however long, walk through the shop and rooms to the front door, open the door, walk outside, just as she was rounding the corner to pull up in front of my little building.

Is that 'communication'? Or is it awareness?

How do we say how or when the two are different?

What is 'communication' without requisite 'awareness'?



Sometimes, laying in bed at one or two in the morning, drifting off to sleep...llistening incidentaly to the chirping of Crickets...

Sometimes, something shifts in me, and for a few moments, I can "hear" them. I can hear 'what', or some-of-what they are chirping 'about'. Usually these are geomagnetic and Earth energy things, often they are things about 'Rain' or Winds.

Many times, laying there next to my also almost asleep girlfriend, I would be listening to the Crickets, then say to her, "They are singing about how it will rain two days from now, it will rain here a little in the morning, then it will rain more to the South later that day..."

And allways it turned out true.

The little bits I sometimes can 'see'...the little bits i sometimes can 'hear'...has led to to a humility with other Creatures and Species...other 'intelligences' one could say. I have seen them to posess awarenesses which I have to say are much larger and delicate than mine.

Even as a kid I was allways tender to them, to Ants, Spiders, Wasps...on and on...and even then I was sometimes glimpseing little bits of what they were up to, or what they were saying or somehow just that they were exquisitely aware of so much more then me in many ways.

What I was aware of, or what I could do, was rescue them from the stupid classrooms I and they were sometimes stuck in...Lol...or just let them know when I did meet them, how much I liked and admired them. I never got bit, while the other kids got bit all the time.

It was the same with the Watermoccassins who used to let me sit next to them on the rocks by the Creek side while they Sunned themselves. They had their 'rules' of deportment and so on, and they let me know what those were. If I minded my respects, I could sit there with maybe a foot between me and the ones on each side of me. if I wandered a little from my awareness or manners, some of them would open their mouths and hiss at me to scold or remind me.

Endless...

So...they are all 'talking' in many ways all the time...

If we could hear or see them clearly, even for little moments now and then, it can cure us of our vanities and introduce us to something infinitely more interesteing and beautiful and curious...and vast...and thrilling. More thrilling than any people-social banalities of status or gain could ever do.

The wonder of it all too, is that they would be so kind and accepting of us, especially if we can somehow locate ourselves in some place of awareness so that we may be responsible 'with' them, in our interactions and communications.

Their largesse and magnanimnity and forgiveness is profound and perennial...but we have to go 'there' to find it.

I am very glad I can build little Cages for some of the feral Pigeons to convelesce in if I find them. I am very glad I may obtain sulfa drugs and have heating pads...I am very glad to help them when I can when they are ill or injured. And in it all, I wish I were not such a clod, because they have so much more 'intelligence' and grace and awareness in their own ways, than I do in mine, which I would so very much like to be nearer to, or to reclaim my own of to meet them even more vividly and responsibly...to meet Life with in the vividness and responsibilities of interaction and grace I was meant to have also, but lost to have adapted to absudrity and neurosis and money getting to pay bills and to satifsy imbescile's greeds.

The 'World' the other Species 'Live' in...Live 'in' is the true World, and ours, sadly, is a dream-world of dim and cloudy apartness. No matter our genious in so many many things which they can not 'do'.

This is all also true of Plants, whom we tend to dismiss as having little or no awareness, when in fact, they are aware of far more than we would ever imagine, and in many many ways we do not imagine...

Endless...

Phil
Las Vegas


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

Phil,

I found reading the thoughts you have expressed deeply interesting and so much demonstrating the concept of being 'part of' instead of 'separate from' all that is around us.

I'm reminded of a short booklet by an explorer, a man called Decker, who spent much time learning from members of one of the tribes of native Americans, of healing, of spiritual 'knowing' and of inner peace. One thing I recall that they taught him was that, to become attuned to the healing power that they believed is all around us and in us, he had to 'love their brothers'. Their brothers being the birds and beasts, trees and rocks.... everything in nature. I interpreted this as meaning that he had to become aware, to somehow 'know', the connectedness of all things and all beings.

Difficult, I think, when we are mostly raised up in our 'civilized' societies to see ourselves as individuals amongst other, separate, individuals and things - in a sense, the center of our own universe! I'm sure that through this process, we have lost most of what may have been a natural ability to communicate and have empathy with our non-human fellow-residents of this planet.

I think, though, that when we have great dedication to the well-being of, for instance, our pigeon friends we do recapture some of that ability and over time find ourselves knowing their needs, sometimes through observing small behaviors, sometimes maybe without even knowing _how_ we know. 

John


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## mistenle (Feb 7, 2005)

I spent a lot of time a few years ago at a tidal river and one of the many things I learned was how connected all the species were to each other and how apart we are from the rest of the world. Most people never even notice all the life going on around them. Its sad really.


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## Garye (Feb 20, 2005)

*All I know is that...*

The ferals I visit are definitely intelligent enough to communicate with each other. I went to visit them one day and sure enough, there was a group waiting for me. But one pigeon was missing - a special white one I named Garye after myself. One of the pigeons that had been waiting for me took flight and appeared to be going far away from me like he was leaving for good. I couldn't figure out why.

All of a sudden I saw that same pigeon come back to me - with another pigeon flying behind him - a familiar white one. It turns out he had brought Garye the pigeon back with him. I guess he wanted to make sure his friend didn't miss me when I was handing out the food.

I don't know how they communicate with each other because I never hear them say anything between each other, but they definitely do "talk" with each other and they do look out for each other.

I've seen these ferals do this several times. If I change the time I usually visit them and there's only one there pecking around, he'll fly to the others and alert them somehow and then they all come over to me. They don't say a word, the ones that bring the others over, they just seem to fly up to the other pigeons and those pigeons turn to look at him as if they understand what he's saying and then they follow him over to me.

They really are amazing birds.


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

pdpbison said:


> Hi photokev,
> ........
> This is all also true of Plants, whom we tend to dismiss as having little or no awareness, when in fact, they are aware of far more than we would ever imagine, and in many many ways we do not imagine...
> 
> ...


There is a fairly well known study that was done w/venus fly trap plants. I may 
have some of the details askew, it's been I think a few decades since I read it,
but...they wired the plants to read their responses. Then sent someone into 
the room who slashed to death one of the plants. Continuing w/the monitoring process, they sent one person after another into the room at a time who had 
nothing to do with the slashing death of one of the plants. The readings remained stable. Then, after several of these other people had come and 
gone with no significant change in readings, they sent the "original slasher"
back into the room, and the plants went "off-the-hook" on the monitering
system. This was a well posted study in psychology circles.

fp


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

*more pigeon communication*

Recently, one of the ferals who visits my balcony has taken to gaining my attention (by design or accident) by rattling the door handle.

If food is not visible, he flies onto the long metal door handle of the balcony door, then peers round through the glass panel into the room. I start off ignoring him, but he seems to be jumping around on it, which makes it rattle. In the end, I have to give in and go open the door and put food down on the doormat for him and his 'colleagues'.

My little hen in Cynthia's aviary, Chickpea, is sitting on plastic eggs right now and instead of cooing at me for attention, bites my hand. It's an eggy pigeon thing, I guess  Anyway, the pigeon next door keeps on trying to evict her from what he still sees as one of his boxes. Now, despite my usual preening being unwanted, Chickpea still approaches me and, if necessary, flies to my shoulder - all because she knows that I, in turn, will evict Gurdy from 'her' box. 

They see things so simply, I think - one the one hand she is instinctively defending her eggs, but on the other (and quite unrelated in her little mind) I am still her 'protector' to remove unwanted intruders.

John


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Yeah, John,

They beg--those pigeons that I posted pictures of in Slow Southern Style? They will sometimes all congregate on the hot tub cover and watch us in the house (with the MOST pitiful expressions) to get us to come out and feed them. They're... devious--but in a cute and endearing way! 

Actually, it's "mind over matter"--their minds controlling my matter.

And, yes, I've seen them post a sentry who, as soon as I put the feed out, would go and fetch the crowd before eating himself.

Pidgey


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