Pigeon Dads Step Up When Food Is Scarce, Study Finds

Pigeon Dads Fill In When Moms Leave Nests to Find Food

Feral pigeon fathers do not slack off when food is hard to find. They double down. A new study tracking German pigeon colonies found males increased the time they spent sitting on eggs by about five percentage points during food shortages, stepping in exactly when females cut back to go search for food. The result: nests stayed covered roughly 98 percent of the time whether food was plentiful or scarce.

Females typically handle the bulk of the egg-sitting, including overnight shifts. Males take what ornithologist Alexander Skutch described decades ago as “one long session each day.” Feral pigeons breed up to five times a year, typically laying two eggs each time, which has helped them multiply in cities. Feeding bans are a common response, so researchers wanted to know how that uneven arrangement holds up when food disappears, especially since earlier research found pigeon hatching success stayed stable under low-food conditions.

To find out, scientists reporting in Royal Society Open Science placed custom weight sensors beneath nests across 20 pigeon colonies in three German cities. Their readings point to pigeons handling scarcity as a team.

Pigeons Split Egg Duty Unevenly, Like Woodpeckers and Some Penguins

More than 80 percent of bird species raise their young cooperatively, but cooperation does not always mean an equal split. Some species divide egg-sitting almost evenly. Others lean heavily on one parent, with a “helper” pitching in for a smaller share. Woodpeckers, certain larks, and some penguins follow this lopsided pattern. So do pigeons. In an even partnership, a food shortage should hit both parents equally hard. In a lopsided one, the parent doing most of the sitting should suffer most, since that bird has the least spare time to find food.

Weight Sensors Showed Which Parent Was Likely Sitting on Each Nest

Male and female pigeons are hard to tell apart by sight, so researchers built weight-sensing platforms and placed them underneath nests in 20 colonies across Braunschweig, Munich, and Würzburg between July and November 2025. Each plate recorded weight every 15 minutes, around the clock, for up to two weeks. Because females tend to weigh less than males and are known to take the overnight shift, shifts in recorded weight helped researchers work out which parent was on the nest.

Half the colonies were “fed” groups living in rooftop shelters where grain, peas, and water are provided as part of city pigeon management programs. Food was never fully eaten, so fed birds likely had more than enough. The other half were “control” groups nesting in spots like church roofs, ceiling panels, and pigeon towers, finding all their own food. Researchers treated the unfed colonies as food-limited, an assumption backed by how much heavier fed females ended up. Usable data on egg-sitting came from 36 fed nests and 21 control nests, with body weights from 75 females and 65 males.

Local animal welfare groups and city officials were already swapping real eggs for dummy versions on regular rounds as population control, and researchers joined those visits to place the sensors. Most birds returned within 15 to 45 minutes, though about one-third moved their eggs or built a new nest nearby, and only nests where the sensors worked were included.

Dads Covered About 22 Percent of the Day When Food Was Scarce, Versus 17 Percent When Fed

Extra feeding made a clear difference for females but not for males. Fed females weighed about 35 grams more on average, roughly 10 percent heavier. They also spent more time on the nest: about 81 percent of the day versus 75 percent for unfed females, roughly an hour and a half more per day.

Males told a different story. In fed colonies, where females sat longer, males dropped to about 17 percent of the day on the nest compared to 22 percent in unfed colonies. Male body weight barely budged between groups, suggesting males were already finding enough food on their own.

Despite these shifts, nests were covered at the same rate in both groups. Daily shifts held steady at roughly five, which points to birds under food stress taking longer foraging trips rather than more frequent short ones.

Stable Egg Coverage May Only Delay the Problem Until Chicks Hatch

Researchers say this uneven teamwork helps parents shield their eggs from food shortages. Because male pigeons normally do less sitting, they likely carry spare energy and free time, giving them room to pick up extra shifts without hitting the energy limits females face. That flexibility may explain why pigeons keep hatching eggs at normal rates when food is scarce, something earlier research noticed but could not fully explain.

That protection covers only the egg stage. Once chicks hatch, both parents feed them crop milk, a nutrient-rich liquid pigeons produce, and earlier research suggests many nestlings starve when food stays scarce. This study did not follow chicks after hatching, so that link rests on earlier work.

That means feeding bans may fail to reduce how many eggs hatch and instead shift the suffering to after birth. Cities trying to reduce pigeon populations may need to focus earlier in the breeding cycle, such as preventing eggs from hatching, rather than relying on food scarcity. With fathers covering the nest, hunger alone may be a weak tool against pigeon eggs.

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