• Here is a story told to me by Derek Goodwin (author of Pigeons & Doves of the World)
  • He wrote me that he used to sit in a park close to his house (he lives in England) and feed the European Wood Pigeons - they would land all around & even on him wanting to be fed. He would reach down and grab some & mark them & then release them. The thing he learned was that the birds would avoid the area in which it was captured. Derek said within a week only the unmarked (uncaught) birds would congregate around him -- the birds he had caught & marked stayed out of his reach.
  • To further test things Derek moved five feet from where he usually sat -- all the birds came to him including the marked ones. When he moved back to the original spot several weeks later the marked birds refused to get close to him.
  • Lesson - doves/pigeons were creatures of habit & if this changes even a bit they become wary. They learned quickly that if they went to the place for feed they would be caught -- so they avoided that spot after being caught the one time. This can apply to the doves/pigeon in captivity as well. [John]