release or too late? Anyone in NYC want to adopt?

[decker]

Message:
My wife and I live in New York City and found a wee baby pigeon(unhurt) who fell from his nest. We scooped him up and have raised him to full feathered self. He can just about fly, not great yet, but soon. He follows us around squeeking flying up to our hands looking for love and food. What do we do? I have weaned him from hand feeding and he forages on the floor of my painting studio for seed which I lay out all over to make him work a bit for it. I heard they mate for life? Can we release him to Central Park, do we keep him 'cause he's so domesticated and connected to humankind, and our dog, too? I really need some guidance here. I could make a window cage, to let him come and go, I could keep him only in a smallish cage, occassionally letting him fly around the studio, but he's pretty messy...Begging for guidance. We'll do the right thing by this little guy!

Hi, Decker

You could try letting the fledgling go slowly from a window cage, but this bird could decide to become a pet instead. There's some danger in doing this (called a slow release), because the birdy hasn't been taught how to survive outside. Pigeons learn from their flocks.

On the other hand, if you let it go in a park, it won't be prepared to take care of itself. The only way to release a hand-reared feral pigeon safely is to let a professional rehabilitator do it. If you want to do that, e-mail me, and we can talk about which rehabber is easy for you to get to.

Rehabbers put young birds with a flock about the same age, and they leave them alone so they don't learn to depend on people. After a while, they let the whole flock go in a place where they can monitor them.

Pigeons are tamer than other birds, and that makes life outside in the wild dangerous. They could be too friendly to people, dogs, or cats. They might not know what a hawk is.