Opinions on pigeons

Pigeons are really cool birds! As a hobby, our family raises racing homing pigeons. We have a flock of of about 30, and during the day they fly all around our house and barn and at night they all go into the loft to sleep and the automatic door closes when the sun goes down. They are pretty, and it’s SO COOL how they go out and fly all over and then always home back to the loft where they were raised. Liking pigeons is not weird at all!

I mean have you seen the pigeon lady in the Home Alone 2 movie… she’s basically the coolest character in the whole movie.

I think pigeons get a bad rap. I'm a HUGE bird lover/avian enthusiast, so I love pretty much all birds. I've fed pigeons before in Central Park and they can be really chill and friendly once they warm up to you. They really are like voracious puppies! I've met people who just see pigeons as vermin or "rats with wings", and I pity their ignorance wholeheartedly. I also do legit think snails & slugs are kinda cute. Spiders I don't typically mind. Insects-- depends on the insect. TBH, crickets and roaches really freak me out.

I love them too!! A friend of mine has been de-stringing the feet of the local pigeons and calls a foster/rescue home for ones that have damaged wings that keep them alive

Pigeons in the United States are feral domesticated animals that were abandoned by people who used to love them. People hating them is like hating stray dogs or cats. They're not native but they don't harm other species, they carry the same diseases as any other bird so they're not plague vectors or anything like that, they're pretty to look at, and utterly harmless to people. You can pick up any pigeon off the street and, with a little time and patience, that bird can learn quickly to trust and even love you. They're not technically wild animals, they're abandoned pets that have learned to thrive on their own.

They are cute and gentle but they are common so people do not admire them

hmm what about warblers?

I love pigeons & I'm very sad for how humanity used them when we needed them to send messages but basically abandoned them when we "didn't need" them anymore.

I love pigeons, I used to have a flock of them when I was a young teen. They all had names and personalities, they bred and had babies, one even used to lay her eggs in my lap. I started my pigeon hobby by catching an especially fat one in a park while on a holiday at 11. My folks let me keep him, I took him home 1,200 klm away. I got him a wife, they had babies. For fun, I entered him into our small country town show (akin to fair), and he won Champion Bird of the Show! Turns out I had nicked someone's champion Modena. Whoops. Edit to add: I love all animals, even the weird ones. I had pet native (to Australia) giant burrowing cockroaches as a kid, too. For some reason plump fowl and birds really make me happy and emotional. Also emus, I love them.

I think they’re unfairly maligned and their oil spill feather coloring is beautiful. I’ve heard they can make good pets. But they still scare the shit out of me when they fly too close to me without warning.

My opinion of birds in general is probably skewed by my dad’s. He had an irrational fear of birds (that he honestly never explained lol) and any time we saw one get even kinda close he’d start talking about how much they suck. I think I’ve heard the airborne rats thing before, I think it’s kind of a popular opinion of New Yorkers because they’re so common in the area and they’re pretty good at carrying diseases. There’s some pretty cool birds that frequent the area around my house though. I got into a staring match with a cardinal earlier today actually, and since there’s a pretty decently sized forest area around our house and a pond less than 200ft from my backyard and a lot of the bigger birds like hawks and eagles will try to catch fish there in the spring/summer. I swear the same two geese have been foraging near the pond for the past week too. Although because of the forest area there’s also coyotes that live around the area, and more than once we’ve found the half-eaten remains of a goose or heard the pack howling at like 11pm meaning they were probably going after something or had just caught something :( Bugs/spiders are definitely not my thing. I had a bad experience once as a kid when we were camping and I went up to my mom complaining my armpits/stomach felt weird and she lifted up my shirt and like 50+ bees were crawling under it trying to get at some ice cream I had spilled. Totally freaked me out to bugs for a long time. I don’t really freak out as much though except for bees/hornets and spiders. I do think a lot of them are cool but i’ve gotta be watching them on TV or a youtube video to not want to walk away lol.

sweet and misunderstood. people think they're goofy for not being able to build nests, really their origins are in the mountains. they stayed on flat areas. they don't have the instinct as it was not necessary for them. you ever see a pigeon chilling in a tree? there's a reason they choose urban areas and that is very smart! hope to keep one someday. while i'm here, rats are also awesome, misunderstood creatures. 😁

Really cool and pretty adorable. They were done dirty by humans. Read their short story in the webcomic ‘Loving Reaper!’

I love pigeons! They’re historically one of the most integral animals we’ve ever given jobs to. They’re affectionate, smart about some things, hilariously dumb about others, and form beautifully close relationships between eachother. They’re great birds. They get such a bad rep because many people don’t seem to understand anything about them. Insects? Yep! Snails? Yep! Spiders? YEP. Spiders are a wild one. I used to be a bad arachnophobe but my spouse started to teach me about them Like how some spiders keep pets. Or how many spider mothers will spend every moment of the day and night protecting their egg sac, ensuring it has the right humidity, temp, etc. how spiders with damaged legs will wrap them in silk to splint them. Jumpers recognize people’s faces and voices too! And I used to play with the jumping spiders outside, rolling tiny gravel pebbles by and they’d grab them. One even started to bring the pebble back to me to roll it again. Love em.

I love pigeons. Also worth remembering that pigeons are a fully domesticated animal - the ones you see outside are stray/feral populations, the same as seeing a cat or dog living outside. We domesticated them, took them around the world away from their native wild habitats, and then largely abandoned them as a species because we no longer have as much use for them. I have a pet pigeon named Pearl. I don't think this sublistnook allows pics, but she's a Classic Old Frill (satinette coloring), so if you look up the breed you'll see what she looks like.

I love them!

I love seagulls even though people call them the rats of the sea. I love how they are kites without strings. My favorite bird is a turkey vulture though, so others may also find my bar pretty low.

Pigeons need our love and support. Humans domesticated them, used them for communications and messaging them, once technology moved on we no longer needed to exploit them and we abandoned them. They are practically pets, just living out in the wild. Thank you for caring about them They're fantastic creatures and have smashing personalities.

All birds make me think they have some hidden disease. Maybe hearing about the bird flu freaked me out, or maybe to much time with chickens as a kid freaked me out. But sadly the best thing about birds to me, is they eat spiders. lol.

I love them they’re so cute, its not their fault there’s a lot of them I also love rats and snakes but hate spiders lol, there isn’t much logic to it it’s just appeal (and also I’m terrified of spiders)

Yeah agree pigeons are cool. But they are easily adaptive in city places unlike other birds. And we have been fed generational hatred against this poor bird. But, more often than not a flock of pigeons is really irritating. Ton of feathers, birds shit like crazy as well! So it's natural for us humans to hate them. The crows are same. But recently the number of crows has drastically gone down, and also since they form smaller flocks compared to pigeons, you don't see people hating crows as much as they hate pigeons

Some people like to keep rats as pets. 🤷🏽‍♂️ You be you. 🙂

bit of a deep roller myself

Their cooing is very endearing.

They are incredibly smart birds. They also come in all kinds of beautiful colours. My fave is the Nicobar. I'm definitely Team Pigeon.

I adore shiny beetles, ladybird, spiders and snails. But can't abide slugs. Ick.

I had a friend who found a pigeon chick and raised it in his apartment for like 3 years. It died because it was egg bound and he didn’t know. But it was a really devoted and sweet little bird and brought him so much joy. 

They're *adorable.* I love seeing the plumage variations. Have you seen the clever ones that have mastered riding the metro?

I love them. They're adorable dinguses.

At least in Western society, think of the most esteemed, holy, symbol-laden bird there is: a dove. Now think of the one scorned--at least in America--as a flying rat, scourge of the city: a pigeon. They're the same bird. So pigeons remind me that a lot of what we see is based on whatever-colored glasses we have on at the moment

Come join us at r/pigeon! You are one of us!

I think it’s the association of them being a city bird, and often scavenging trash. Yet everyone loves doves which are extremely similar. Seagulls are also pretty well established in the “rats with wings” category, and are definitely far worst to deal with than pigeons, more likely to steal your food and very loud, but I have come around to really liking them after reading a book my dad gave me during a rough time in highschool. It was called Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and it was pretty impactful and made me view them in a much more positive light.

I love pigeons. Beautiful birds. Not so keen on the other stuff you mentioned lol.

I love pigeons, but lately Ive fallen in love with doves even more. There’s a whole bunch that have started coming to the bird feeders my parents keep in their backyard, and they’re really cute. I like it when they sit down like little loafs. I was staying over at my parents when there was a freeze earlier this year, and they have this shelf thing and some planters out back. All of the doves found their own little spot like one on each of the shelves and on each planter and were all sitting there like little loafs, it was so cute. I think it was warmer near the house so they were all just hanging out with us, probably like 17 or 18 of them. But yeah I love pigeons too, they are pretty similar to doves. I love all birds.

I don’t like them. I genuinely don’t know what their point of existence is apart from leaving an absurd amount of shit on cars and pretty much everywhere else.

I absolutely love pigeons ❤️

I like them because they are so chill. Blue jays, woodpeckers, etc can be annoying and bossy. Pigeons are level headed and do their own thing. When I fill my feeders, I always spread some out on the ground for the pigeons. Check out Zefrank's [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LfYV39SKIiM) on them.

Pigeons are really cute! There was a park in FL somewhere when I was a kid where they’d come right up to you and take food from your hand. I also really love snails and insects, I used to spend time on the playground when I was little just watching them.

Aesop Rock wrote a song about them. I dig it. Same for pigeons/dove/squab https://youtu.be/Xf0poQI8wSo?si=xYV6yWrkWWIJi9zz

In Indonesia some people breed pigeons for contests. Some people are super into it, there's nothing wrong about liking birbs ;)

If I didn't already have cats, I would have pigeons. They're cute and from what I hear can be quite affectionate pets

I love pigeons and want one as a pet at some point!

I love birds period. But i do find pigeons to be so cute and silly as you do. We call them piggies affectionately. They are also a type of dove. I also love insects, spiders, snails and slugs. I rescue them all the time. When I was a kid I used to play with snails outside lol.

Pigeons are neat birds! I grew up with my grandpa having homing pigeons. They were fun to watch and be around. He would bring them over to our house and let them go to fly back to his farm.

I really like pigeons as well! They look quite fascinating--I love the way they walk and bob their heads. I think it's cool that they have adapted so well to living in cities and in close proximity to people. They are resourceful, living off new food sources, and they build nests in so many places. In a way, we have created a new ecosystem that they have adapted to fill. Insects are very cool too. Last year I found a bunch of beetles on the cabbage in my community garden. They were black and yellow, and nibbling on the cabbage, but they looked so cute I didn't have the heart to kill them. So I carefully removed them and put them on another cabbage.

I love pigeons :) I take photos of ones with unique patterns whenever I’m in NYC

Cool birds, tastes just like chicken

[Pidgeonomtry](https://youtu.be/Xf0poQI8wSo?si=8-EqMDUQBTuf5ReM)

There is a lovely book, “Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird” by Andrew D. Blechman - you might enjoy it. Came out originally in 2007, so available as a used book for like $7: https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/pigeons-the-fascinating-saga-of-the-worlds-most-revered-and-reviled-bird-9780802118349?shipto=US&curcode=USD&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Shopping-Used-Top-USA&utm_content=192035416071&utm_term=&creative=785536533805&device=m&placement=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22688101594&gbraid=0AAAAADMQnG9lLX-Zpqj1shiA7uTIg1hX7&gclid=Cj0KCQjwm6POBhCrARIsAIG58CK_XEQePSoUWcv_favulvMN3752UXjuLJqTlluRrhZIvU2ZeepUUiEaArDmEALw_wcB

They are so cute as are all other birds. They have an excellent sense of direction and navigation too. Hence why they were used to transport letters

Wow, 100 comments and nobody has brought up the pigeons aren't real/"have you ever seen a baby pigeon?" conspiracy theories lol

I'm pretty sure pigeons are just a kind of dove, and I've always thought they were cool, so I don't think it matters if other people don't agree

i was okay with your love for pigeons until you mentioned insects. wdym lol

I am deathly afraid of them. I know they are plotting to poop on us, and they know that I know. They always watch me with their beadly little eyes, waiting to find me with my guard down, so they can attack. They do eat cigarette butts though so it helps keep the streets a little cleaner. One time I was walking down an alley in Chinatown and there were a group of chefs luring them into the back door of the kitchen. Which was kinnda gross.

Pigeons are cool! I don’t have much to say about them, but I get very happy whenever I see them!

They coo

Pigeons are just doves, but doves get all the love. Makes no sense. I love the variety of colors you can find in pigeons. They’re beautiful.

I prefer Corvids

A lot of birds visit my garden. Including two pigeons which have been coming here for a few years. They eat seeds, insects, and small plants. They like to rest under my willow tree. They have a place in my garden along ask the other birds. Pigeons aren't just city pests.

Fellow pigeon lover here! I rescue/rehab and currently have a completely blind one that I raised from a chick. They are amazing, intelligent, and loving animals. Many people don’t realise that they were domesticated and bred by humans and cannot survive without us, which is why they occupy towns/cities.

Growing up, my front balcony was infested with pigeons. They're disgusting. They will f*** dead pigeons. They shit everywhere and it's like acid that will eat the paint off of anything and it's really toxic. And They can't make a nest for shit. I like most birds except anything from the dove family. Doves can f*** right off.

I mean pigeons and crows did spread a lot of diseases in history along with rats…. So people have a reason in a sense. Especially since they’re the most likely bird to poop on you or your cars But aesthetically pigeons do have a cool look about them. I could see how someone finds them pretty. So it’s not a bad bird to find cool

Air rats

Sky rats.

I dont like what they do to my balcony. I think of them as hawk food.