People often tell stories of their pet birds who love different music genres. The owners can’t exactly tell what their pets like about it, but the birds indeed love listening to it. There is a long list of birds who love listening to music.
Nevertheless, do pigeons like music, or are they out of the long list of birds who love to listen to music?
Pigeons like music and react very joyfully while listening to it.
Do Pigeons Love or Hate Music?
Pigeons live near humans. Many are kept as pets. Others live in the cities around humans all day. As a result, they are often exposed to loud music and noises. Nevertheless, do pigeons like what they hear?
Pigeons don’t like everything they hear. They like to listen to tunes but dislike unnecessary loud noises. It may sound funny, but they have their tastes just like we do.
Many pigeon owners have said that their pets enjoy listening to classical and instrumental music most. Some even claim that their pet pigeons love to hear them singing. It is not an uncommon phenomenon.
Many birds are attracted to soothing recitation or music. This is pretty common among the birds. This is why stories like birds attracted to a singing princess were pretty common in the old days. This indicated how well the princess could sing.
However, pigeons don’t like loud noises. Loud and uncontrolled noises disturb them and can hurt them physically or mentally, just like us.
Many companies and farmers use loud noises to shoo pigeons off their lands. They use loud sounds of vultures or hawks. The pigeons get scared listening to the sudden hawk squeak. Then they flee the place immediately. However, it is not a very efficient technique to get pigeons out of one’s land.
The city pigeons are a lot different. These city birds are often exposed to loud and uncontrolled noises. Hence, they are not startled easily.
Why Do Pigeons Enjoy Music?
Pigeons indeed hear the rhythms. But do they enjoy what they hear? In most cases, yes, pigeons enjoy hearing the tunes. They react to both vocal and instrumental music. There isn’t much science behind this. They just love hearing the beats and strokes of musical instruments.
Moreover, tons of online videos show a bird starting to flap its wings and dancing happily as soon as its favorite rhythms are played.
But why do pigeons love music so much? Pigeons love listening to the plays because their biology is built accordingly. Their biology forces them to like a specific tempo or a frequency of a melody.
A pigeon learns tones and different melodies from its surroundings. It is an intelligent bird and can learn pretty fast. The bird can then whistle or make up its own noise to communicate.
Moreover, pigeons are highly social creatures. They are used to being around humans for centuries. Social animals tend to enjoy music just like we do and move or sing conveniently. Their brains respond to music the same way it does in the case of humans.
Are Loud Melodies Bad for Pigeons?
Loud sounds and music can harm the pigeon pretty severely. Many pigeon owners agree that their pets like to listen to music. However, they dislike very loud or amplified music. It is like a physical assault on them.
Sudden and uncontrollably loud noises can cause permanent damage to the bird’s hearing. Sometimes they go through massive behavioral changes due to storms and sudden lighting that have scared them pretty badly.
Many experts even suggest not to keep on playing amplified music in front of your pet pigeon. It can affect their physical and mental health. They could be traumatized or highly stressed out.
Besides, not all type of music is suitable for your pet pigeon. Your bird may like a special kind of melody, but that doesn’t mean that they would like a lot of others genres also.
Some music could be detrimental to their health. You need to know your pet better and understand their preferences if you want to be friends with them.
Moreover, pigeons have a hearing range of 0.5 to 8k Hz. This means they can hear different sounds that we can’t hear (the human hearing range is 20 Hz to 20k Hz).
Hence they can pick up sounds with wider frequencies. A sound may seem different to them than the way we feel it.
Such sound sensitivity helps the pigeons to keep their balance while flying. Permanent damage to its auditory system can also leave a pigeon flightless.
Hence, pigeon owners must be extremely careful while caring for the precious bird.
Can Pigeons Understand Music?
Pigeons love to listen to music and react to it accordingly. However, scientists are still not sure if they understand it or not.
Some researchers suggest that pigeons have no particular understanding of the theme of the song they’re listening to. Pigeon brains just react to music the same way as human brains.
However, pigeons can understand other pigeons’ chirping and cooing sounds. They generally coo to attract mates or let other birds know about their territories. Moreover, they can detect the distress calls of different species of birds.
Conclusion
Pigeons love to listen to music. But they can’t withstand loud amplified music for too long. Sometimes loud tunes can be detrimental to them.
Hence, pigeon owners must be careful about what type of music their pets like. They can sing a little song to the bird with an acoustic guitar, but they can’t take the bird to a rock concert.
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