seriously though
“What we learned is there’s something that keeps the birds from becoming fully machinelike in their responses,” says Wasserman, the study’s corresponding author. “Maybe it’s in their best interest to keep some variability in their behavior. You don’t want to be too locked in, because things happen, and the world could change.”
The study also extends the notion of the edge of chaos beyond evolutionary biology, where flexibility to a changing environment can be beneficial to a species’ survival.
“Might other, more intricate and innovative behaviors like playing an instrument, composing music, and creating visual art involve similarly adaptive variation?” says Odysseus Orr, study co-author and third-year graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences who earned his undergraduate degree from Iowa in 2023. “Only time will tell, but the pigeons provide a convenient gateway for answering those questions under highly controlled circumstances.”
...
“Such dramatic behavioral instability is most definitely not consistent with the Law of Effect,” says Wasserman, who has studied pigeon cognition and behavior for more than five decades. “The pigeons maintain this exploratory tendency and keep trying multiple sequences. They do not abide by the familiar maxim: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”
source of shitpost https://now.uiowa.edu/news/2026/04/edge-chaos-pigeons-keep-their-options-open
Seriously, pigeons should be the national animal of ADHD-land.
They are also the messiest nest builders which isn't really that point. It's basically a domesticated animal that was discarded by humans when the modern mailing system was invented. How the hell are they supposed to know how to build a nest when it was literally bred out of them?
And yet, they try. Every single year, they try to build their fugly nests and they somehow keep their population alive despite picking the worst places to make nests and then sometimes a nest is two branches balancing on a drain pipe. They raise their five babies on that shit and somehow they all survive their childhoods or chickhood, if you will.
The way pigeons fly. Clumsy with the loudest wing sound ever. Alerting every predator to their presence because of something they can't control. And yet, they are still surviving and there are so many of them out there.
I saw the only well made pigeon nest last year. Still looked like a ratty mess, but I could imagine a few chick's hatch and grow up nicely in that nest.
Problem is, they built it too late in the season. It was like, August/September when I first saw them. The mom-pigeon lay on that nest until November when she finally gave up and left it. No eggs anywhere to be seen.
This spring, I saw her and her mate return to the nest and rebuilding it. I hope they have better luck this year and don't push it until autumn before thinking about having babies, lol.
Pigeons, man. They are something else.
Here's a couple of pics of the pigeon on the nest. I started taking pics and sending them to my boyfriend and my best friend at the end of October because I was starting to get worried, lol.