Another Wood Pigeon

[Bonkers Mad!!!]

yesterday evening i caught my (small) cat sitting on a juvenile wood pigeon. i caught and examined said bird and it appeared to be fine, if a little stunned. i put the bird into a cat box and left it, covered, in the bathroom over night. this morning i took it into the garden to see if it could fly. it flew off onto my neighbours roof where it stayed, grooming it's feathers, for about half an hour and then it flew into my apple tree. that was at 9.30 this morning. i've been waiting for it to leave so that i can let my cats out but it's still just sitting there. it looks pretty alert but doesn't seem in any hurry to be off. my (possibly dense) question is, is a bird that is obviously old enough to be flying actually old enough to be out of it's nest? if you know what i mean. i'm prepared to keep the cats in until tomorrow if necessary but i wanted to know if the bird is capable of looking out for itself or is it just going to sit there and starve to death without it's parents?

[owlmomma]

How long is a piece of string really, it's difficult to know if it is old enough to cope on it's own without seeing it. If there is food around and it isn't going for it then probably not. Baby pigeons have pigeon "milk" from the parents for quite a long time after they leave the nest so I would guess the parents were still feeding it. Question is, where are they?

If nothing has changed by evening, I would fetch it in and see if you can find someone local who knows pigeons and will take it in.

I would gladly have it but I am in Norfolk so I don't know if that is far from you?

[sue1]

This might be a little late but I have had a few baby wood pigeons falling out of nests/flying off too soon so hopefully can help. I rang the RSPB who said that the parents only need to come and feed baby 2 times a day at this age. They WILL know where the baby is and will be able to get to it to feed. Hopefully the parents are still around and have not left the area now.

One set of parents last year fed a baby that fell off the shed out of its nest, and they reared it from the ground. It stayed on the ground for about a week and they came down morning and evening to feed it, spending the rest of the time on various chimneys/trees in the area the rest of the time.

The mother makes cooing noises to call out before flying over to the baby to feed it, its lovely to watch.

keep us updated!

[Kayleigh]

We have had baby blackbirds being fed by the parents for two weeks on the ground under the hedge in my garden.

[Bonkers Mad!!!]

there are quite a few wood pigeons around here and he was very interested in the ones that perched on the roofs. fortunately he was gone by 3pm so i could finally let the cats out.

thanks for your help

[sue1]

Aw nice ending, thanks for letting us know

[Bonkers Mad!!!]

just a quick update.

i saw the little pidg this morning on the field opposite my house, he lost a couple of tail feathers to the cat so i knew it was the same bird. he seemed to be with a group of about 6 other woodies. i'm very relieved as i was quite worried about him last night

[sue1]

Thats brilliant news! You've seen him for yourself now so you know he's ok

[Stewy]

We've got a pair of Wood Pigeons nesting in our grape vine, I went and had a look this morning and found this. One of them is still sat on the nest so hopefully there is at least another egg, how many do they lay? I've had a Google and most sites say just 2, do they ever lay more than that?

[sue1]

Aw hope there is another one

I have had a few in my garden and they have all had 2.

let us know what happens?

[Stewy]

They've abandoned the nest, theres an egg in it too.

[sue1]

What a shame

they can have 3 or 4 broods in a season though, so hopefully they have found a safer site elsewhere and are baby making right now.

[Stewy]

Should I remove the egg or just let it be?

[sue1]

Definitely leave it. Let nature do whatever it intends with the egg.