my pet pigeon, Pidge

[Lammy]

Hi,

sometimes Pidge sits in the sun with his tail fanned out & 1 of his wings out & he looks flat , but if u go near him he stops & he only does that 4 a short time anyway, what does it mean when they do that?

& in summer he loses some of his feathers on his neck, but other pigeons in the area dont

[TAWhatley]

Hi Andrea,

Pigeons love to sun bathe just about as much as they like to bathe in water. Other types of birds do the tail and wing thing too when they are taking a sun bath. The first time I saw a bird do this, I thought for sure it was starting to go through death throes .. not so at all .. just immensely enjoying some time in the sun.

Pigeons and other birds go through at least one molt each year to allow for new feather growth. What you describe sounds perfectly normal to me.

Terry

[Pete Jasinski]

Last summer Dudley lost almost all of this neck feather at once during his molt. I was panicing until I saw the pinnies coming in, phew! That was the first I saw that on a bird because my parrots all molt evenly, live and learn.