NYC Wildlife: The Pigeons Outside My Window
My air conditioner, unused since the dog days of last summer, has recently taken on a new function. It’s a pigeon boudoir.
For days, the pigeon of mystery has been landing on the unit every few minutes with a long, slim twig in his beak.
He struts around, goggles at me through the glass and screen, then disappears. Moments later, he’s back, empty-beaked, to coo and strut before swooping down to the trees in the playground below. And in another minute, he’s back again with an almost identical twig sticking out of his beak like a long cigarette.
Sometimes the pair hangs out together, billing and cooing, carrying on like teenagers in Riverside Park. Occasionally a third pigeon tries to land, only to be chased off by one of the pair.
After more twig carrying, the twig-carrier lands on the air conditioner and begins to vibrate. With wings arched forward and beak open, he moves the area beneath his beak rapidly up and down, his entire plump body shaking. Only the solidly-planted red legs and feet are still.
After ten minutes of this strange behavior, the pigeon again flies off. Then with a great scraping of claws, both pigeons land. Cooing and bowing , they seem, well, excited.

Pigeon courtship: male bowing. Cornell Lab of Ornithology Project PigeonWatch; click image to visit website
And suddenly, wait a minute, what are they … what’s all that flapping … oh, oh, all right, yeah… my pigeons are going at it, they’re copulating, right there on my air conditioner, just inches from my desk. It’s over in seconds, too fast for me to grab my iPhone and take a picture.
Apparently, after mating, male pigeons clap their wings audibly in a display flight. If my male clapped, I missed it. But it probably looked something like this:
Later, the pair rests amiably on a nearby fire escape.
The next day, with more twig gathering going on, a friend visiting from Los Angeles makes a bold suggestion: open the window, stick your head out and look for the nest that is clearly under construction. A brilliant idea. I angle my head out, look to the right, and find two birds staring curiously back at me from barely six feet away.
I’ll be tracking the pair and their nest as closely as I can, given the uncomfortable viewing arrangement. (The picture above is taken by holding my iPhone way out, while hoping I don’t drop it to the ground six floors below.)
My friend suggests a periscope.
I’ll keep you posted.
Explore posts in the same categories: 2010, April, Birds, In the City, Wildlife/Natural HistoryTags: NYC pigeons, pigeon behavior, pigeon courtship, pigeons build nest on NYC building, pigeons nesting, rock doves mating
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[…] The return of color to the city, buds and leaves, lengthening days, unpredictable weather – I could go on and on.But for me, it means pigeon sex. A few weeks ago, my air conditioner resumed its spring function as a pigeon boudoir. […]
July 5, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Holy crap I thought my pigeons were special! Um that was until I noticed little bites all over me yesterday! Yes they built a nest under/around my air-conditioner. I decided to google pigeon nest under my air-conditioner and found your blog. Going out to buy the fly spray now:(
July 7, 2010 at 10:12 am
How awful. Good luck. Guess I’m lucky my pigeons ended up using my air conditioner only for sex, not for raising a babies — and mites.
July 2, 2010 at 1:06 pm
[…] the dog days of last summer, has recently taken on a new function. It’s a pigeon boudoir,” she wrote this spring. A couple weeks later, a post celebrated the animals of Morningside Park with a photo catalog of […]
April 20, 2010 at 11:01 am
hallo there!
I just want to warn you that I have a less positive experience of a pigeon nest outside my window – last year I had the same but when the pigeons left the nest my house became taken over by tiny mites that came from the nest. They streamed through the window and bit me on the leg whilst I was sleeping. Really, it was mental. We got rid of them with fly spray but it was a horrible experience. Watch out for this happening to you! good luck, Jo (by the way I am also a bird lover it has nothing to do with that!)
April 20, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Yikes. That sounds truly awful, like a horror movie! Thanks for the warning. Luckily, “my” pigeons are only landing outside the window as an occasional resting spot. The actual nest is kind of around the corner in a windowless nook. I do know that many wild animal nests are riddled with parasites of one kind or another. Some mammals even move their babies from one nest to another when the nest gets over-run with parasites. Don’t know if any birds do that. Ugh. Can’t shake the image of the mites streaming in through the window….
April 16, 2010 at 10:44 am
Very cool! It’s so easy to take creatures as common and ordinary as pigeons for granted… sometimes we have to stop and remind ourselves to take a second look. They can definitely be entertaining. It’ll be fun to see the chicks eventually fledge, too!
April 16, 2010 at 11:47 am
So true, Rebecca, that it’s easy to take common animals for granted. Scarcity generally drives value, but it’s helpful to remember that locally common birds, even “pest species,” may be cherished exotics elsewhere. (Well, pigeons, maybe not so much, but they’re fascinating birds anyway.) Yes, I hope the nest is viable, and the chicks hatch. The actual nest is completely out of sight, except for a twig or two and some loose down, but I’ll try to track development anyway. Even without a periscope. Thanks for the visit!
April 15, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Thank you, everyone, for the comments. Hope to have more pigeon news soon.
April 14, 2010 at 6:28 am
Thanks. I never thought so poetically about pigeons…I must admit they’re quite boring here in Milan ’cause there’s too many of them. I saw one nest build nearby my motherinlaw’s airconditioning made by a couple of turtle doves. They build the net, made an egg and grew as a family…
April 13, 2010 at 5:54 pm
The male claps? Ahem, cough. So typical of us.
April 12, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Well, indeed, that was a brilliant idea. Love the pic of the periscope, and the silhouetted pigeon– quite saucy for a pigeon.
April 12, 2010 at 12:02 pm
OMG. Pigeon porn!!
April 11, 2010 at 8:01 pm
I love this post. Now I understand your like of the pigeon drinking from the water fountain (thanks). Pigeons are fun.