Wood Pigeons Mating

[gen2]

Two wood pigeons have nested for four years now in a conifer in the town garden that backs onto ours.

As I sit at my laptop, I have a view of my neighbour's fence and twice a day for the last three days I have seen this pair kissing and canoodling there. At least twice a day, this culminates in them mating (6 times so far). I believe a clutch size is normally 2 eggs.

My question is this: Is their mating so inefficient that it takes several copulations just to fertilise a single egg? Or is this a rare example (outside of primates) of animals participating in this activity purely for enjoyment?

[wildwood]

The only non-primate animal that we know of to have sex purely for enjoyment are some of the dolphin species.

Wood pigeons, like most birds, annually rear more young than the environment can support. This is a specific insurance against times of famine and disease and importantly , provides a surplus of birds for the next breeding season.
To ensure the fittest birds breed on to perpetuate the species, the birds rebond their pairing many times a day by going through the display-feed-mate process. If one of the pair is not in good condition and lacks in this rebonding the other one will soon loose interest and become interested in another prospective mate.
Most breeding birds are only receptive for a short time after the egg is released from the ovary. The other times that mating takes place are for pair-bonding purposes and often no sperm is transferred if there is a fertilised egg coming down the ovary - lack of hormones that activate certain muscles in the hen's cloaca make transfer impossible.

Saying that, a few bird species have special adaptations where the hen bird, especially in those species that use a lek for display, are able to store viable sperm and fertilise the whole clutch of eggs from one mating.

[seekeerz]

While having no bearing on your question about wood pigeons [mind you, our local doves are 'at it ' all the time] could I direct your attention to this weeks KM links results and the heartfelt plea for assistance made by the little woman running it

ps - sitting watching is almost amounting to voyeurism, you know !!

cheers, S

[gen2]

Thank you for those replies.

I think she must have laid an egg/eggs by now as I have only seen a single bird around today so no courtship behaviour has been evident.

Collared doves are rare visitors (last one about 18 months ago) so don't see their behaviour. (They are common elsewhere in town though).

Feral pigeons visit every day but no courtship behaviour evident - just fights for pecking order supremacy over the patch of ground under the seed feeder. Over the years their activity has worn away both the grass and the soil so there is now a distinct hollow in the garden that fills with water every time it rains.