2 pink-necked green pigeons hatched in S'pore man's potted plant fly away from nest for good

Bye bye.

Belmont Lay | July 11, 2021, 05:56 AM

A man in Singapore woke up one day to find a male pink-necked green pigeon making use of his indoor money plant to build a nest and start a family.

via

Pigeon makes nest out of potted plant indoors

The man, surnamed Wong, first posted on June 9 about this peculiar incident of a pigeon making a home out of a potted plant inside the house.

"How am I going to water my plant and keep it from drying out?" Wong asked, incredulous.

One egg laid

On June 19, Wong provided an update that one egg had been laid in the pot.

via

To differentiate the male and female pink-necked green pigeon is not difficult.

The female pink-necked green pigeon is less colourful and more green in colour.

via

It typically takes about 25 days of incubation for the chick to hatch.

Two hatchlings

On June 26, Wong broke the good news that shells from two broken egg were spotted, as two new hatchlings had emerged.

Instead of one, the mother pigeon, it turns out, had laid two eggs in the pot.

via

The eggs were most likely laid in the first few days of June.

via

The bird couple took turns to incubate the eggs with daddy pigeon taking the day shift while mummy pigeon taking over at night.

Male and female pigeons feed hatchlings

The baby pigeons, also known as squabs, are fed by both the adult male and female pigeons.

Both the male and female pigeon produce pigeon milk, or crop milk.

The milk consists of fluid-filled cells shed from the lining of the crop, a food storage gland located at the bottom of the birds' oesophagus.

The squabs take around two weeks to be fully fledged and will leave the nest when they are ready.

via

Hatchlings grow up to leave the nest

Lo and behold, Wong provided the latest update on July 10 that the two hatchlings had grown big and strong enough to leave the nest for good.

The nest is located on the sixth storey of Wong's apartment.

The bittersweet moment was documented by Wong in a series of photographs he took on Sunday, July 4.

via

One of the juvenile birds first flew from the pot in the hose to a nearby tree some 5m away at about 4pm that day.

via

via

The other juvenile bird followed suit to make its departure from the nest an hour later.

"It then dawned on me that perhaps my little pot was just too small for the Green Family... Kind of sad to miss them," Wong wrote in his July 10 post.

Spent one day at nearby tree

However, after leaving the nest, the young birds still needed time to get used to the natural environment.

Wong observed that the female adult pigeon huddled in the rain on Sunday night with the two juvenile pigeons at the nearby tree.

The male adult pigeon had flown away earlier, after it was joined at the tree by the two juvenile pigeons.

The female adult pigeon and the two juvenile pigeons were the only ones that remained on the tree for the whole of Monday, Wong observed.

Gone for good

This was the last time Wong would see the birds.

By Tuesday morning, July 6, they were gone for good.

All Wong was left with was a money plant that had withered.

via

But Wong said he is blessed to have provided a safe haven for the two adult pigeons to roost, lay eggs and stay safe from natural predators.

Commenters have praised Wong for documenting the pigeons in detail.

Some commenters raised the possibility that the pigeons might return to the same place to lay eggs again in the future, given their homing abilities.

You can read more about Wong's posts about the pigeons here.

All media via Wong