# How do these pigeons recognize me? But they do!



## SerendipityCA (May 2, 2008)

OK, so, as someone dubbed me today, I am officially the Pigeon Lady of Cow Hollow. 

When the management of my apartment building covered the roof access to the lightwells with wire mesh, I rescued a couple that had been trapped inside. Then the whole flock just sat on the roof of the building looking down sadly as if to say "but ... but... but... we LIVE there!" So I bought an 8 pound bag of bird seed and began putting it out on the carport roof, which I can see from my apartment window, and was happy that they found it.

Then of course...I would have a bag of it in my purse, and I noticed these pigeons that hung out at the French boulangerie where I get my coffee every morning. I have to sit outside because I have a dog who can't be tied up and left alone (too skittish), so I notice the pigeons. One thing led to another and I started feeding one of them. He's got a stump for his right foot, so I called him Stumpy. There's another one who's got a stump for his left foot, so when they're around together, I call them Stumpy Right and Stumpy Left.

Stumpy Right is now eating out of my hand pretty regularly, he trusts me (took a while).

Well, here's the thing, and why I'm posting. I walk up the hill to get to this cafe, then turn the corner, and as soon as I turn the corner the cafe is visible (and I am visible from the cafe). The last three times I have done this, the pigeons have IMMEDIATELY flown from as much as a half block away and landed at my feet! The first two times, I was talking to a companion so it's possible they heard my voice. The third time (today) I deliberately didn't say a word, just stood on the corner and within 5 seconds they were all there. I saw them fly in - two from the east and two from the west, and they were at least a half a block away when they took flight toward me. So, it wasn't smell, it wasn't sound, it must have been that they spotted me visually?

I feed them there where there are no businesses, under some trees where they can eat in peace and not bother cafe patrons. Once I put the food down they all eat until it's gone, then they find their way to the sidewalk outside the cafe, and just hunker down and wait for me to leave!

I don't feed them EVER while they are at the cafe anymore, because they were getting so bold with me, Stumpy Right actually hopped up onto my table the other day and that's just not a good thing to encourage.

Today I had been telling these two women at the cafe table next to me about them, and I said "Watch, when I leave they'll follow me."

Well, they didn't. Until... I got to the corner, crossed the street and started to go down the hill and then - WOOSH - all three of them came flying after me, landed at my feet, and I gave them a goodbye meal.

So my question is - do pigeons have really good vision or - WHAT?


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

They do have really good vision and can remember things in detail. Sort of like taking pictures in their brain and storing them. 
They do learn to recognize people and even the cars they drive. We've got a member here, don't remember who it is, that feeds pigeons in a parking lot. They come down to greet this person when they arrive. If memory serves me, he/she arrived in a different car one day for some reason and the birds still knew it was their "feeder person"..........even in a different car. 
They are pretty smart huh?


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

I can't remember what I was watching...it may have been that Pigeon Genius show, but they found pigeons could remember a LOT of images for very long periods of time, many for their lifetime. They also showed how pigeons can recognize faces in such detail that they even blurred out parts of the face, and the birds still recognized it! Pigeons are really intelligent, and have been put right up there with crows, dolphins, etc. even though you don't hear much about them being so smart.
They do have really good vision, hearing, and sense of smell. They can see color, and even UV and polarized light. They can also hear sounds people can't, and scientists believe a pigeon can hear the wind blowing over the rocky mountains from hundreds of miles away. And last but not least, smell. You wouldn't think a bird would be able to smell that well, but pigeons can. So much that scientists have found this is one of the things homing pigeons use to get home. One of the members in my racing club said once that the pigeons always seemed to do a little better in headwinds, but he didn't know why. If those scientists and tests are right, then it's because the wind is carrying the smells from familair places.

So really memory and sight may not be the only things your feathered friends recognize you by.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

MaryOfExeter said:


> And last but not least, smell. You wouldn't think a bird would be able to smell that well, but pigeons can. So much that scientists have found this is one of the things homing pigeons use to get home. One of the members in my racing club said once that the pigeons always seemed to do a little better in headwinds, but he didn't know why. If those scientists and tests are right, then it's because the wind is carrying the smells from familair places.
> 
> So really memory and sight may not be the only things your feathered friends recognize you by.



So, if you don't wear deodorant, don't start now and if you do, don't stop??? Is that what you're saying Becky?


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

Hahaha, that's not quite what I was saying


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## Noisy_minor (Jun 20, 2008)

its amazing how smart they are, sounds like you'll just have to put up with being the towns resident pigeon lady. quite an achievmant if you ask me.


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## Victor (Dec 18, 2004)

This thread reminds me of when my pigeon Tooter was gone from home for over 7 months and he returned home. I remember as if yesterday when I climbed the ladder and offered him my arm, called his name, and he flew to my arm and started to coo-ka-roo-ka-coooo and dance. Yes, they are smart creatures indeed.


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## Larry_Cologne (Jul 6, 2004)

Hello Serendipity,

I've noticed that sometimes pigeons remember me, and sometimes they don't. I asked myself why. I thought about why I remember some faces and names, and why I don't, and it seems there are some similarities between humans and pigeons.

Santa Claus I would remember almost anywhere, even given that he doesn't exist in certain frames of reference. I picked up his image when I was very small, and it was very important to me then. So it stays with me.

When I dream of my parents, who are now in their eighties, I see them in their twenties, when I was then an infant.

When I dream of high school friends, even ones I have seen over the intervening years, they are usually still in their teens, although they are now in their sixties. We remember high school friends more than grade school friends and college friends (assuming that the three groups are composed of different persons, as is mostly the case with me) because the teen years is when we bond the most with many others, since we will be spending a greater portion of our lives with that group than with preceding or following generations, and what our teenage peer group thinks seems to matter most to us (usually at the cost of grief and aggravation to our parents).

I have gray hair and beard, and on occasion have noticed "my" pigeons fluttering down to follow and pay undue and unwanted attention to a strange passerby with gray hair and beard (but without food) until they noticed their mistake when they saw him from the front.

Now that I am oldie and moldy, I observe that teenagers pay little or no attention to me. They often literally don't see me, unless I am an obstacle.

I have often watched people in the city passing near pigeons. Usually they don't see them. They are preoccupied. When I am on public transportation, on the look-out for pigeons, I am often unaware of those around me, to the extent that I could not describe a face to you of someone who was in my vicinity. I am not interested in the information, therefore do not process it for memory.

It boils down to this: that we remember what is important to us. What we are rewarded for remembering, or punished for forgetting. It is a matter of motivation. And it is the same for pigeons.

Of course, we all know this.

So, I have a suggestion. When politicians and elders and others lament that our nation -- whatever nation you are a citizen of, the lament probably applies to most humans -- that our nation is falling behind others in educated youth, in technical achievements, in economic growth, and such, I suggest that we re-consider how we motivate our teen-age youth. Let the scholastic achievers have a party with Playmates of the Month or the equivalent, let the girls have a screaming session with their favorite rock stars or celebrities. (This suggestion dates from my youth). Giving somebody an alphabetical letter, a grade, on a piece of paper often doesn't cut it as a short-term goal.

I don't think pigeons would much go much for _A_'s and _B_'s on a scrap of paper. They want something tangible and tasty.

And they remember the steadfast suppliers of tasty treats. 

Larry


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## maryjane (Jul 15, 2006)

I loved your post, Larry.

Many birds do this. The crows I use to feed near my old office would see me pull in and come down to land, even though I didn't feed them in the parking lot but rather from the third-story window. It was just like they were saying hello. I always thought it was my red hair--"there's that lady with the red feathers!"-- but I'm not sure. They seemed to recognize my car even before I got out. Right now I have a young blue jay who started talking to me when he was just out of his nest. He lives in my back yard and every day pops down to say hi when he sees me come outside. Yesterday I was out front, getting in my car, and he swooped down to the tree right above me. He was obviously very pleased that he had found me and was talking up a storm (not screeching like they do, but rather "beep peep a deep" ing at me, the little language they have that sounds like parakeets muttering.  Birds are sure smart! Of course the jays and crows are part of the corvid family, and corvids are supposed to be the smartest birds under parrots. But the pigeons are pretty far up that list too.


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## xxmoxiexx (Oct 2, 2006)

I KNOW they remember you! The pigeons, they now know WHERE i live! They land at my window ledge, and my cats slam themselves against the window to try and catch them. They are gonna get me in trouble, they know my roommates car, and i try to shoo them to the park, and as i am crossing the street, a hundred pigeons just land by me in the street! I tried taking different bags or buckets for the seed, still recognize me!
I once read on HERE that someone fed the pigeons in the winter only because of shortage of food then, and they would fly down to see her, but not her husband i think, and so once it warmed up, she had to use an umbrella to go to her car so they wouldnt see her. Pretty funny, huh?


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

They have amazing brains, really, to be able to store thousands of images. When I'm at Cynthia's I feed the town ferals sometimes, and even though it may be only once in a couple of weeks they still gather on the grass soon as they see me. Doesn't matter what I put the food in.

At my apartment, there's one pigeon I have known for years (a good nine years) who will greet me in the courtyard if I'm back from work at the right time in summer, knowing I'll have peanuts. He (or she) will also visit the balcony and just wait for peanuts once he knows I've seen him. He is the only one, though, who will recognize and come to me wherever he sees me.

The drawback, I've found, is that they will also remember if I've tried to catch them to check them over and failed - they keep a safer distance.

John


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## SerendipityCA (May 2, 2008)

I love this discussion! It's so great to be here on this forum with other crazy pigeon people 

"there's that lady with the red feathers" - hee! You're not far from me, about 40 miles north.

Something sad happened today... and the timing was really awful, because it happened just as I was returning from a memorial for my mother, who died July 9th (http://www.t-hunts.com/pdf/mary_dixon_memorial.pdf)

We have some pigeons who hang out around my apartment building, as I've posted on other threads. I have been feeding them. We have a driveway between our building and the building next door that passes under two lightwells. The lightwell space is extra big because it's mirrored - both buildings have their lightwells in the same spot, so they form a square instead of a half-square, if you get the visual.

Now that the "half" lightwell on the other, more private side of the building (facing the blank wall of the adjacent building), has been pigeon-proofed with mesh over the roof, the pigeons live in the more public driveway lightwell or on the freestanding carport roof.

I have been feeding the pair in the lightwell, by putting food on the cement off the driveway. But mostly I throw seed up onto the top of the carport and they swoop down from neighboring buildings (the other day I counted over 30 of them!)

Tonight as I was returning home from my mother's memorial, I saw something lying in the driveway under the lightwell. I hoped it was a black plastic trash bag but as I got closer I saw it was a dead pigeon. I stopped my car because i didn't want to drive over it, and got out to look. It had been somewhat eviscerated by the impact, and had regurgitated some seeds.

I put on my flashers and was going to get a bag to pick it up, when a pickup truck entered the driveway behind me. I waved him off but he just sat there, so I went over and said "Somebody killed a pigeon in the driveway. I don't want to drive over it so I'm going to get a bag for it. You can drive in through the other driveway." (Our building and the building next door each have a driveway, and our carport areas are contiguous, so we each use whichever of the two driveways is convenient, coming or going, regardless of which building we actually live and/or park in.)

Ah, getting bogged down in detail as I usually do...sorry about that, no time to edit...

He didn't react at all when I said that to him, didn't speak, he just backed up, and I went in to the building and got a bag from my apartment, and as I was walking back down the driveway, he was walking toward me from the carport area. Now I felt a bit of a weird vibe from him, but I chalked it up to, he's young and yuppie, and I'm middle-aged and crazy enough to care about a dead bird, which are TWO reasons why I'm not someone this guy would care to talk to. But...he didn't speak to me, he didn't make eye contact, and it was just - weird.

So, I picked up the body and put it in the bag, and washed down the driveway. NO other birds were around, which wasn't that unusual, but I was concerned that the bird had been there a few hours, and how traumatic would that be for other birds, or its mate if it had one?

After I parked my car, I got the idea to check the bumpers of the cars in the carport. And, in the spot at the end of the driveway, facing out, was this guy's pickup truck (hood still warm), with a dried fluid stain on the left bumper - EXACTLY in line with the pigeon's body, if he were driving out (he backs in to his space so he has a straight shot down the driveway, apparently). I took a moist cotton swab and swabbed the stain, and it came off red. There was a tiny splash above it, also red.

I think that might have been why he didn't make eye contact. I think he knew he had hit the bird when he had driven out hours earlier, and maybe he was embarrassed that he had just left it there for me (or someone else) to find.

Or, maybe he didn't know. Could a pickup driving at slow speed (30 feet from a dead stop) be unaware it had driven over a pigeon?

This was a healthy bird...it just might have been startled and flown up to avoid the truck, at exactly the wrong time. Who knows.

I feel bad, because I greeted the pigeon earlier as I was leaving, he was just standing in the driveway...and I had meant to put out food for him and the others, but I was late for my mom's memorial, so I didn't.

Do you think that by feeding them there, in addition to on top of the carport, which is safe, I actually trained him to hang out in the driveway and helped to get him killed?

I have to think not, because those pigeons have been hanging out there for years anyway. The garbage chute is there, and we recently got some bins in that alcove as well as the main garbage bin, and I've seen pigeons fly out of that alcove many times before.

Sorry this is so longwinded...but it creeps me out, because I live in the back of the building, to see this killer truck sitting there, visible from my window.

I'm thinking I don't want to leave a note on his windshield saying I knew he did it - what would be the point? He might know he did it, he might not. He might have done it on purpose, but I doubt it. If he knew he did it and didn't pick it up, that's nasty but...I'll never know one way or the other.

Anyway, I'm not sure even why I posted this except I felt so sorry for the little guy, and I'm wondering, if he had a mate, is the mate going to be upset? Lonely? Find a new hubby?

Also, is there a way to tell the males from the females from a distance? I can't touch them or check their anatomy up close.


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