A pigeon’s beak is a tool specifically designed for extracting seeds from fruit in a precise, energy-efficient manner, although certain species have adapted beaks for eating different foods.
Their upper and lower bill are both moveable which give their bill extra maneuverability. Pigeons use their tongues to move their food from the tip of their beak.
While a bird’s mouth only functions during eating and feeding its young; a bird’s beak may be useful at various times or throughout the bird’s lifetime. Their beaks serve many other purposes apart from finding and handling food such as:
Grooming Their feathers, preening themselves
Defending Themselves A beak can be very sharp making it a powerful weapon
Nest Building Some pigeons use bits of sticks and small twigs which are broken up using the beak while nest building.
Digging and Probing Pigeons can be seen on the ground rooting through loose ground using their beaks as tools which help find fallen seeds
Cooling Down Cooling Down by panting through an open beak
Communicating A beak is important in non-verbal social signals and can show their current mood – like an open bill expressing aggression in most species
Sensing Their surroundings & Thermoregulation
The tissue inside that bill contains a great network of nerve cells used for locating food items as well as thermoregulation and excreting salt. That nerve cell network is one more complex that human fingerprints!