Untamed Pet

For centuries people have love/hate relationship with pigeons. These birds are so common in urban settlements that somehow become part of our lives. Many people don’t know that domestic and feral pigeons are in fact bred from the wild rock dove which used to live on sea cliffs. That is the main reason why they really love water and tend to find the ledges of buildings to be a substitute for sea cliffs.

Pigeons are a community flocking bird so if you see one you will soon enough see many more. They can breed all year long because they are producing pigeon milk so their number in cities is increasing and that is what creates that “hate” effect in humans.

This bird is bred and domesticated long time ago, some scientists say about 10 000 years ago in Mesopotamia; and originally used as messengers because of their ability to find way back home, even from unknown locations 1000 km away.

No matter do you love or hate these birds they are ever present and became part of our lives, one way or another.

I photographed pigeons from time to time for years, in my backyard, on streets, actually everywhere I can think of. When I scrolled through my photo collection I was actually shocked how many photos of them I collected over the years, so here are some of them.