Floating Woodpigeon (1 Viewer)

[King Edward]

Noticed this (link) on the Herefordshire Ornithological Club sightings page - anyone else noticed anything similar?

 

[Cheshire Birder]

Noticed this (link) on the Herefordshire Ornithological Club sightings page - anyone else noticed anything similar?

Maybe it got confused and tried to land in the water or alternatively it may have been drinking from the waterside and floated off. Interesting behaviour what ever the reason.

CB

 

[gw4aurora]

Birds will float of course. When I used to go sea fishing from a boat I have observed racing pigeons landing on the sea exhausted and drift along with the tide. Some would manage to take off again.
Pigeons are powerful flyers.

Chris.

 

[Tideliner]

I would think it was a accident. The wood pigeon is barely fledged and may have been on its first flight and probably did not know what water was.

 

[RecoveringScot]

There was a note in 'British Birds' about 20 years ago about pigeons or doves seen deliberately and repeatedly trying to land on water briefly and taking off again. The behaviour seemed to be unexplained at the time, according to a card received from the author of the note in response to a suggestion of mine.

Cheers

 

[Tiraya]

Yes, I saw a Rock Dove land in the water. I even have a distant picture. Better than none. See attatchment. It flew off very quickly (a couple of seconds) after landing.

 

[Trystan]

I've seen feral pigeons 'swimming' on 2 occasions, both times in warm weather, looks quite deliberate rather than accidental to cool off.

 

[Cheshire Birder]

I've seen feral pigeons 'swimming' on 2 occasions, both times in warm weather...... to cool off.

Seems a more plausible reason to me than the two I gave earlier.

CB

 

[King Edward]

I wouldn't have said it was particularly warm on Wednesday morning when this was said to have happened - if that was the case when why aren't they doing it in droves when it gets really hot? The explanation of this being down to the inexperience of a young bird sounds reasonable to me.