Rock Pigeons occupy expensive Gulf retreats

I didn't travel to Texas recently to take pictures of Rock Pigeons. Yet I did, and there's an interesting story behind these birds. We spent a lot of time along the Gulf Coast between Freeport and Galveston. The shore is littered with million to multimillion dollar seasonal retreats on stilts (Note: if you have to put your house on one-story tall stilts, it's probably not a smart place to build, and even stilts won't protect against severe hurricanes).

Anyway, as these monstrosities are largely uninhabited in winter, the pigeons move in. The plastic owls people attach to their balcony rails do not deter these clever birds. So, these pigeons are living large in the eaves and rafters of the seasonal pads of the wealthy - go pigeons!

I will note that Rock Pigeons are a personal favorite bird. I'm aware that they aren't native - pigeons were introduced to North America in the 1600's. But insofar as I know, they do little or no harm ecologically - even the smattering of pigeons that return to their wild roots and nest on cliffs in wild places. About all of the "problems" they cause are human-centric. Further, pigeons are gorgeous birds. The flock in the photo contains some of the classic "blue-bar" birds with grayish body and two thick black wing stripes - that's the wild phenotype. Some stunning coal-black individuals are also in the photo, and color variation in Rock Pigeons is wildly variable.

This species has been heavily studied in regard to color genetics, avian orientation (homing pigeons), and flight mechanics. The protein hormone prolactin - which enables mammals (and some other animals, including pigeons) to produce milk, was first discovered in pigeons. The lowly pigeon has made tremendous contributions to science but receives little credit for it.