How many years and where doves live: sense organs and what affects their life expectancy

Everyone knows this bird firsthand. For some, this is an ordinary city bird and does not cause any interest, but for someone it is a favorite feathered creature. Breeding pigeons becomes their favorite pastime. In any case, many people at least once wondered how long these birds live? Let’s find out about it together, but first things first.

in the pigeon family approximately 300 species of birds. All of them are very similar to each other both in appearance and in their way of life. True, this does not apply to the breeds of domestic decorative representatives. They have an unusual appearance and are unlike wild birds. For a standard dove, you can take the well-known rock dove. Domesticated representatives have become excellent postmen for people.

Where do doves live?

Not everyone knows the life expectancy of these birds in nature. To begin with, we note that there are two categories of pigeons:

• wild;
• Home.

These birds live in different places. Most wild individuals today live in most of Eurasia. They are also found in the Altai Mountains, in India, in African countries and near Saudi Arabia.

The most common dove on the planet is the dove. Everyone imagines it when they hear the word “dove”. He prefers to live near the places where people live. Most of them are in big cities and towns.

Pigeon habitats

Did you know that they used to live only close to sea coasts – in the rocks? Also, wild birds live in the mountains, for example, a large number of birds are found even in the Alps at an altitude of 4000 meters and even higher.

Pigeons are freedom-loving birds, in this regard, open space, oases are preferable for them. But there are also representatives who choose stone or wooden buildings, where there is a rather limited space.

These birds lead a sedentary life and all the year round dwell in one place, with the exception of those who live in the mountains. With the onset of cold weather, they make vertical movements, depending on the air temperature. But these wild populations are becoming less and less. This is due to mass urbanization. In some especially large cities, the number of individual birds can reach several hundred.. City pigeons often make their nests in abandoned houses or on the roofs of skyscrapers.

As for the territory outside the city, pigeons can be found most often in mountain gorges, coastal cliffs, steep banks of water bodies, in bushes and even in an ordinary agricultural field.

As you can see, some birds prefer to live closer to people, while others choose a semi-wild lifestyle.

Dove’s sense organs

These birds have excellent eyesight.. It allows them to see not only the 7 colors of the rainbow, like we humans or primates, but also ultraviolet rays. Thanks to this feature, they can participate in search and rescue operations. In the 80s of the last century, the American Coast Guard conducted a successful experiment to search for people in life jackets on the high seas.

Before the experiment, the pigeons were trained to give a signal when they saw the color orange. Further, the birds were placed on the lower deck of the helicopter and flew over the territory of the alleged disaster. As a result of the experiment, it turned out that in most cases (93%) the birds found the object of search. But the rescuers had a much lower figure. (38%).

Another feature of these birds – excellent hearing. They can pick up sounds at a much lower frequency than a human can hear. Birds may hear the sound of an approaching thunderstorm or some other distant noise. Perhaps for this reason, birds sometimes fly away for no apparent reason.

Pigeons are perfectly oriented in space and can easily find their way home. Thanks to this feature, people began to use them to deliver letters. These birds can fly up to 1000 km per day. Some ornithologists believe that this is due to the fact that they are able to pick up magnetic fields and navigate by the sun. And British scientists from Oxford conducted an experiment, with the same purpose, to find out how these birds orient themselves. They attached special global positioning sensors to their backs. It turned out that the pigeons preferred terrestrial landmarks, such as highways or railways, and only when they were in an unfamiliar area, the birds were guided by the sun.

By the way, these feathered creatures are considered quite smart birds. This information was supported by experts from Japan. They found that birds can remember their actions with a delay of up to 5-7 seconds.

Interesting facts about the rock dove

Due to the fact that the rock dove led a predominantly rocky lifestyle, he does not know how to sit on the branches of trees, but nevertheless his synanthropic descendants learned to do this.

They walk on the groundshaking his head back and forth.

When flying, they can reach speeds up to 185 km / h. Especially fast are wild birds living in the mountains.

In places with a fairly hot climate, birds descend low to the water and into deep wells.

City pigeons, due to their habitat next to people, protected from most predators and the ability to skillfully fly they do not need. In general, urban representatives are very lazy and prefer to wander more than fly. Food is mainly collected on the ground. But if necessary, they can show the class in the sky.

How long do doves live?

It all depends on external factors, but on average they can live 15-20 years. External factors include:

• type of bird;
• accommodations;
• breed.

As for individuals of wild pigeons, they often do not live up to 5 years. But domestic breeding individuals, one might say, are old-timers and sometimes live up to 35 years.

If he lives in a suitable climate, he has enough food and has access to clean water, then his life expectancy will be quite long. That’s why pets live longer. In addition, caring for domestic birds also implies compliance with hygiene and sanitary standards, as well as disease prevention. Often the cause of death of representatives of this family in the wild is various infections and diseases. City pigeons can also get sick.

So it is difficult to unequivocally answer the question of how many years pigeons live, and it is only clear that decorative representatives live longer than wild and semi-wild ones.