Doves And Pigeons (1 of 13)

One a pigeon, two a pigeon, three a pigeon more...and more...
underfoot, overhead and roosting in our rafters...
Pigeons have been with us since ancient times.
From the cities of Sumer and Babylon they conquered the world, migrating and multiplying to make nearly every city their urban jungle.
Today the prolific population is a problem that has come home to roost..
We invited this grey bird to live among us as a pet, training it for our own pleasure.
Darwin's admiration of its capacities led us to experiment on it, turning it into a model of artificial evolution, changing its shape, colour, even crippling it with selective breeding methods, The used and abused grey city bird has more than 300 species of coloured cousins in the wild, living in dense forest, desert, frozen tundra and lush tropics.

The pigeon's grace once charmed us.
The dove became a symbol of love, fidelity, and peace and a Christian icon for the Holy Spirit.
This bird of peace was later transformed into a bird of war, equally capable of saving or destroying human lives.
Now the army of street pigeons living in our concrete and steel world, feeding off our garbage are known as ''winged rats.'' Their downfall from a revered wild bird to a city pest is a tragic tale.
The island of Sardinia in Southern Europe, is an isolated rugged beauty of rocky cliffs.
This wild natural habitat of steep rock faces and hidden caves is an ideal haven against the enemies of an inconspicuous grey blue bird the rock pigeon.
The plain grey-blue rock dove is unique among its many relations.
Well ahead of the chicken it was the first bird domesticated by man, some 7000 years ago.
All the pigeons we breed and the millions of street escapees from human domestication descend from the rock dove.