Published April 17, 2025

The Queer Ecology of Pigeons

Pigeons remind me that I can create my own feral life in a big city.

Sarah: Pigeon, I grew up in a city and always felt a kinship to you, but it wasn't until recently I realized how much we had in common! Pigeon: You're queer too!?

Pigeon: Everything about pigeons is queer; their family structure, sex lives, and biology. Their queerness is not some anomaly among birds or other animals (or even plants for that matter). Sarah: Nature is not homophobic. That is an ignorant concept humans created to distract from building loving communities together.

Cities are the most recent habitat on earth. Humans (mostly colonizers) destroyed flourishing habitats. They murdered and displaced indigenous people to erect steel structures and sprawl over already existing environments. And yet, dandelions push through concrete. People fight for land back and pigeons nest on skyscrapers.

The fauna and flora that adapted to the invasive habitat now live alongside 55% of the world's human population. Pigeon: European colonizers brought me to the Americas in the 1600s but I escaped and became feral again! Rock doves, aka pigeons, thrived; food was easy to find, and the tall buildings were like their native seaside cliffs in Southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Eyes: 340 degree field of view and they can see ultraviolet light! Cute face. Lungs and air sacs: birds are so good at breathing! Their lungs get fresh O2 every inhale and exhale because their air sacs do all the pumping. Crop: This gland can store food and produce crop milk during breeding season. Cloaca: The hole for everything. Hollow bones: strong but lightweight, the hollow bones are connected to the air sacs too! Pigeon: pigeons are monomorphic; females and males look the same and rather than different external genitalia they all have a cloaca opening.

Pigeon: Pigeons mate for life and raise their young together in simple nests. Female pigeons lay ~2 eggs every 6 weeks or so, but the eggs must be fertilized for squabs to hatch. Mama pigeons can raise squabs alone but this is rare. Some pigeons have sex and even raise squabs in same sex pairs. Gay!

All pigeons have cloacas cavities. A hole where they poop, have sex, and lay eggs. When pigeons mate they put their cloacas on each other, called the cloaca kiss! Once the mama pigeon lays the eggs both parents take turns sitting on the eggs until the squabs hatch in ~18 days.

Both male and female pigeons make crop milk for their squabs. The milk is produced from food the parents have eaten. Inside the crop, nutrients are added. Then, the parent regurgitates the crop milk into the squab's beak. Baby pigeon cries: dad! I'm so hungry!

All around the globe pigeons live their queer little avian lives, a reminder that we can become feral again.

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