Have you ever imagined to be with bunch of birds and surrounded by them that we often see in TV? Maybe just simply feeding the birds with bread will help us to have a better connection with them. All these moments are magical, exciting, and romantic as we are picturing this it in our heads. In order to have this experience, we can learn from this study of feral pigeons about how they can discriminate different human feeders (friendly vs. hostile). This research focused on the animal’s ability to recognize human’s distinctive characteristics such as shape, facial traits and the color of clothes in response to adjust its behavior accordingly.
For this experiment, researchers studied free-ranging feral pigeons in an urban park at ‘Me´nagerie du Jardin des Plantes’ which is in the centre of Paris, France. There were two experiments conducted. Each experiment started with a training period that lasted 9 days, which was the time for pigeons to learn to distinguish between the two feeders. In the training session, the hostile feeder disturbed the pigeons once a minute by vigorous arm waving whereas the neutral feeder did not. In the first experiment, the hostile feeder had a red coat while the neutral feeder had a white coat. Then in the second experiment, the hostile feeder wore an orange coat and the neutral feeder wore a yellow coat. During these experiments, the researchers tested the same-coat test and exchange-coat test between the two feeders. The data was collected by counting the number of pigeons per batch for each sampling was scored from images. Then a generalized linear model was used for this experiment.
As result from this study, it showed that the capacity of pigeons to distinguish two types of human feeders (neutral and hostile feeders). Based on the test, when the hostile feeder became neutral it did not disturb the pigeons. The pigeons persisted in avoiding the previously hostile feeder. Even with the coat exchange test, the birds were still able to recognize the two types of human feeders. Therefore, this research suggests that pigeons discriminated facial or body movement characteristics to recognize and avoided the hostile feeder. This study is important and ecologically relevant for pigeons because it explains their fast recognition of the safe human feeder by decreasing time spent foraging and increased the rate for obtaining food. Their ability to recognize and respond to different types of heterospecific signals also helps to explain why some species like non-domesticated species are better at prospering in environments modified by humans.
Pigeons discriminate between human feeders: Publication Finder for AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2018, from http://0-web.b.ebscohost.com.sophia.agnesscott.edu/pfi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=c295f28b-bb89-45a5-a6f0-deb8610360fa%40sessionmgr101
Selena Lomeli
October 16, 2018 — 4:20 pm
This is a very interesting study. It reminds me of how crows are able to remember faces and the study that was conducted with them. I wonder if they did another study with the pigeons, where they put a mask on the persons face (like the crow study), to see if they can still differentiate between who is hostile and who is safe.
Evangeline Grace
October 16, 2018 — 10:25 pm
Excellent title! I’m really surprised that pigeons have such keen memories for faces. I wonder how long it would take to forget both the neutral and hostile feeders if they stopped feeding/interacting with them. I imagine it would take quite a bit longer to forget the hostile feeder, but I could be wrong.
Erika McDonnell
October 17, 2018 — 12:05 am
I find this fascinating, since I’ve often been so annoyed with the pigeons in areas with lots of human traffic. It does make sense, though, since pigeons have probably relied on humans for much of their foraging. In the future, if humans don’t want to be bothered, I guess we’ll have to be less friendly towards them. 🙂
Alina Vadsaria
October 17, 2018 — 2:11 am
This is pretty interesting because feeding birds is fun, but who knew the deeper concept of bird feeding. What I am wondering is that “hot colors” or colors such as red, orange, and yellow were used for the coats, but would it make a difference if “cool colors” such as green, blue, and purple were used? Sure the gestures for one of them could still be vigorous, but would that effect when the coat exchange occurs? Nice paper and interesting to visualize.
Yasmin Edwards
October 17, 2018 — 2:20 am
Personally, I think pigeons are rats with wings but its really cool that they can distinguish between a hostile person or a friendly person. Does this also work with geese and squirrels?
Emma McKeon
October 17, 2018 — 12:58 pm
I feel like you never really think of pigeons being the brightest birds, but this makes me think maybe we were wrong about that! I really liked this article. Something about it makes me feel like there are MANY other studies that could be drawn from it, which is so exciting!