BIRD BRAIN ?

With increasing urbanisation and the migration of people from the countryside to towns, building construction is an endless process in India.  Exclusive neighbourhoods are fast being transformed, as high-rise blocks of flats are going up and green areas are disappearing to make way for the tide of an increasingly dense population.

Monkeys, frequently seen in Alkapuri, have disappeared altogether, moving to the outskirts of the town.  The pigeon population, however, has adapted to urbanisation in the most remarkable way.  Not only do they use air conditioning units and balcony railings, as perches, in preference to anything botanical, but astonishingly, they have taken a cue from the building methods round and about and now construct their own reinforced nests !  Instead of twigs, these nests are carefully made out of thin pieces of malleable wire, which they bend round any existing vertical cable, between apartments, to provide a nest, which they line with a few sticks, for the sake of comfort !

Aesthetics is of no importance in avian urbanisation - these wire nests look a mess, but since wire conducts heat, presumably the incubation period for pigeon eggs is quicker ? !