Pigeons

by Miriam Schlein, Margaret Miller (Photographer)

Explains how pigeons, descendants of wild rock doves, live their lives, raise their young, and have been useful throughout history to people.

43 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1989

About the author

Miriam Schlein was an American author who wrote nearly 100 books that helped teach children about animals and more obscure ideas such as space and time. Her books include The Year of the Panda and Discovering Dinosaur Babies. Schlein died of vasculitis in Manhattan, New York, at age 78, in 2004.

Reviews

[Gabriella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pigeons have 37 taste buds?! They molt from September to November?! Fun facts.

Cher Ami (WW1) and Crisp VC (WW2) are two famous carrier pigeons whose stories are briefly covered. Great photos of wartime carrier pigeons. I was familiar with carrier pigeons delivering messages in times of war, but not with their use in search-in-rescue missions. In sea and plane missions, "Pigeons can spot a survivor 90 percent of the time. People can only do it 40 percent of the time."

I was not familiar with the Bleeding Heart pigeon of the Philippines, either: "People who see it in the zoo often report an injured bird." (I looked up this bird, as the black and white photos in this book don't do it justice...I can indeed see how that feather pattern could be alarming!)
A page or so on the extinction of the passenger pigeon, which is always devastating.

I was familiar with nearly all of the "pigeon words" that had entered the English lexicon - pigeonhole, stool pigeon, pigeon-toed...But I have never heard anyone use the phrase "billing and cooing." It is defined here as "two people acting very affectionate ("lovey-dovey") with each other (the way courting pigeons do)"

I went into this thinking it was a pigeon photography, but I'm not disappointed. There are photos accompanying the text, and last 4 pages are exclusively photos, but they are all in black in white and are not the focus of the book.