Pigeons Kiss Like People Do

08 Jun, 2025

All of a sudden it's June. Pride Month, the last month of the school year, and also a part of pigeon nesting season. From spring to fall we get to see rock pigeons and mourning doves make their notoriously shitty-looking small piles of twigs nests on our balconies, windowsills, floors and practically any other flat surface as they try to pass on their genes to the next generation of city-dwellers.

The key word here is "try". Making your nest do its one job of keeping the eggs from rolling and falling off your temporary home, and then having your hatched offspring survive until maturity, are both no easy tasks. Since mother nature generally prefers quantity over quality, she has no problem losing a few chicks here and there. For us humans it's a bit more difficult.

Last late-summer, when my girlfriend and I moved here, a dove I've named Maggie took a liking to our balcony and made multiple nests on its edge. One of her eggs hatched and I was absolutely delighted to see her baby, who looked like a chewed-up piece of gum according to my boyfriend. But one day it disappeared. I assume it didn't make it and Maggie disposed of its remains. Perhaps this was because mourning doves are supposed to be pretty egalitarian with taking care of their young, but from what I saw Maggie was a single mom¹. Another time I saw her and her two new eggs on my balcony, approached her a bit too fast and scared her away. When she leaped she accidentally kicked one of the eggs off. I felt incredibly gulity and told no one, and Maggie did not succeed in raising a child that season (to my knowledge).

Recently I began seeing doves chilling on my balcony again, and I really hope they pick it as a place fit for their soon-to-arrive chicks. I'm even considering putting seeds and twigs out (to my girlfriend's dismay). It's funny, I hope they manage to become parents and to do so specifically in my home, despite not sharing this aspiration with them at all.

I think these birds are weirdly similar to us (and thus easy to empathise with), despite the fact that most people see them as an annoying or gross part of cities. for one, they make out like we do. Pigeon courting rituals involve nibbling on each other's necks and "kissing" - holding each other's beaks and bobbing their heads up and down. This strange similarity might be pure coincidence, but still - it's hard not to feel a bit of camaraderie with the trashy, awkward creatures who make themselves a place in a world that wasn't bulit with them in mind.

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This is the first time I've touched this blog in months, despite having things I want to write about. As my pile of un-done university duties grows to an all-time high, motivation seems to be at an all-time low. Right now I really should go back to those duties instead of writing here, but when I thought about making this post I knew I had to do it right now or else I'd postpone it forever. Until next time, we'll see how I manage.