Birds Courtship & Mating

I was lucky today. I was attending a workshop with a few other people. The room was on the 5th floor of my work place. This floor has a surrounding huge balcony (unfortunately used mainly by smokers, but also for having a good beer once a while when the sun shines here in copenhagen).

This room has large windows overlooking the balcony, and all of a sudden while talking about converting old products to new billing system or doing a clean up in legacy, the guy leading the workshop became distracted and was looking outside, he laughed and said: "These birds...". Of course we all were curious and looked outside as well.

A couple of pigeons (also known as Rock Dove) were standing on the rail, facing the panoramic view of copenhagen, and courting.

It's been so long since I last saw such a view. It was adorable. They seemed so in love, like in stories. They were kissing gently, looking at each other, waiting for a sign, kissing again, and so forth. Then one of the pigeons flew over the other pigeon touched it for a second and went back to its place, and kissed again.

We were all wondering, what was that act? was it mating? but it was too short. So I came home and I had to find out about birds mating. Something I never thought about, as if it was obvious, but it is not. Call me stupid or call me ignorant, but when I read about it, I was actually so fascinated, that I decided it's worth a post, so here are some of the things I learned.

They were mating :-)

Most birds mating takes place by the coming together of their "cloacas", an act that could take less than one second. Sometimes it is called "Cloacas Kiss".

Reading more about birds I was also fascinated by their different social structures, some are alike humans and some are so different and even more "advanced" if we compare it with western values.

Birds are divided into 4 major social structures:

1. Monogamous (One male for one female)

2. Polygynous (A male with several female mates)

3. Polyandrous (A female with several male mates)

4. Promiscuous (A"chaotic" structure - many to many)

But these two pigeons, they are going to spend their whole lives together, they are Monogamous.

What is more interesting in birds life (not only, also some other animals), and as opposed to human life, or maybe better say some human cultures (I would say, heavily spread in the middle east) is that the male is the one to dress-up; change colors, to sing, to dance and do everything to impress her so SHE can CHOOSE HIM.

The female birds usually have colors that integrate with nature, are not too bold, are not calling :"Look at me, I am here", are not looking for attention, because they know that they don't need colors to get any attention, they are confident of what they got. While the male birds, are colorful, are outstanding in their beauty. The colors and the "make-up" are there to make them feel special, they want attention and they want to be chosen and to be loved. Like it or not, seems that it is working.

Single mothers birds:

What grabbed my attention were the Polyandrous type of birds. Looks like some types of these female birds not only mate with several male mates, but the male needs to work extra hard to get them (unlike other types of female birds), and then after mating, they (the females) leave the male bird, build a nest and nest by themselves. She creates a single mother family!

Wow, there is still so much I would like to write about, but I guess it is enough..soon this post will look like a lecture, and it is Not ;-)

As an appreciation for pigeons, I attached a 10 seconds pigeon clip I created once for a theater play that I participated in its writing, acting, singing and most important, directing. It was called: "Life N' Shit".  About that, maybe I will write something in my next posts.