Rock Pigeon (Columba livia): Facts, Behavior and History

Appearance: how to recognize a rock pigeon

A wild-type rock pigeon is pale blue-gray with a darker gray head and breast. The sides of the neck shine with green and purple iridescence that changes as the bird moves. Two bold black bars cross each folded wing, the tail ends in a dark band, and the eye is orange to red. The legs and feet are pinkish red.

The best mark of a truly wild bird is a white patch on the lower back, which flashes when the bird takes off. Males and females look almost the same, although the female’s neck sheen is usually a little duller. Young birds are browner and less glossy, with dark eyes.

Feral pigeons in towns come in many more colors than their wild ancestor: checkered, reddish brown, white, black and patchy “pied” birds are all common. This variety is a legacy of thousands of years of selective breeding by people.

Size and weight

Rock pigeons are medium-sized members of the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae.

Well-fed domestic birds can be heavier, and some fancy breeds are much larger or smaller than wild birds. The pigeon’s flight muscles are large and powerful, which explains the plump, deep-chested shape.

Habitat and range

The wild rock pigeon lives where there are cliffs or rocky ledges for nesting and open ground for feeding. Natural sites include sea cliffs, mountain gorges, caves and rocky outcrops in deserts, as long as water is within flying distance. Its native range stretches from western and southern Europe and North Africa through the Middle East to Central Asia, India and Sri Lanka.

People carried domestic pigeons around the world, and European settlers brought them to North America in the early 1600s. Escaped birds founded feral populations that now live in towns and farmland on every continent except Antarctica. For a pigeon, a city is simply a giant cliff: window ledges, bridges, station roofs and barns stand in for natural rock faces.

Rough estimates put the European population at 17–28 million birds, wild and feral combined. Pure wild stock is much rarer. In many places wild birds have interbred with feral ones, and some of the purest wild-type populations survive on remote coasts such as the north and west of Scotland and Ireland.

Diet and feeding

Rock pigeons are mainly seed eaters. In the wild they feed on the ground on the seeds of grasses and other plants, plus grain, fruit and green shoots. City birds add bread, chips and other scraps, and pigeons sometimes take worms, snails or insect larvae.

Pigeons feed in flocks, and studies of feeding groups show a division between “producers,” which find new food, and “scroungers,” which follow them. Unlike most birds, which have to tip their heads back to swallow water, pigeons can suck water up continuously with the bill dipped in, a trick shared by the rest of their family.

Behavior and intelligence

Outside the breeding season rock pigeons live in flocks that commonly number 50–500 birds, depending on food. When a flock is alarmed, the birds burst into the air with loud wing claps, and the noise itself warns the others. In flight they are fast and direct, and they often glide with the wings raised in a steep V.

The familiar walk with a bobbing head is about vision rather than balance; it is explained in why pigeons bob their heads. The pigeon’s most famous talent is homing: a pigeon taken far from its loft can usually find its way back, using the sun, the Earth’s magnetic field, smells and landmarks. Read more in how homing pigeons find their way home.

Pigeons are also good learners. In laboratory experiments they have learned to tell paintings by Monet from those by Picasso, to sort photographs into categories, and to follow simple rules about the number of objects on a screen. Feral pigeons in Paris have been shown to recognize and avoid individual people who chased them, even after the people swapped coats.

The rock pigeon’s song is a soft, rolling coo, often written as “crroo-oo,” given by males in display with the throat puffed out. Pigeons also give a grunting alarm note when they spot a predator. Many of their signals are not vocal at all: wing claps at takeoff, foot stamping, hisses and bill snapping, which nestlings use to deter intruders. Researchers have even found that pigeons tend to stamp with a preferred foot first, a little like human handedness.

Instead of oiling their feathers from a large preen gland, pigeons are covered in powder-down feathers that break down into a fine dust. This powder keeps the plumage soft and waterproof and gives a pigeon’s feathers their silky feel.

Reproduction and life cycle

Rock pigeons usually form long-lasting pairs. In courtship the male puffs out his neck, fans his tail, coos and bows, turning in circles in front of the female. Paired birds preen each other, and the male often feeds the female from his bill.

The nest is a loose platform of twigs, straw and grass on a sheltered ledge or in a crevice. The female normally lays two white eggs, and both parents share incubation for 17–19 days. Thanks to a remarkable food called crop milk, which both parents produce in the throat pouch, pigeons can breed in almost any month. Feral pairs may raise up to five or six broods a year where food is plentiful. See what crop milk is for how it works.

The chicks, called squabs, hatch blind and covered in sparse yellow down. They grow fast and stay hidden in the nest for about four weeks, leaving when they are nearly the size of their parents. That is why people rarely notice young pigeons, as explained in why you don’t see baby pigeons.

Lifespan

Most wild and feral rock pigeons live about 3–5 years. Many die in their first year from predators, disease, bad weather or accidents. In the safety of a loft or aviary pigeons often reach 15 years, and a few have lived longer: the decorated war pigeon G.I. Joe died in 1961 at about 18 years old.

Predators and threats

Rock pigeons are a staple prey for birds of prey. The peregrine falcon has a long history as a pigeon hunter on sea cliffs, and the return of peregrines to cities from New York to London has been fueled partly by plentiful feral pigeons. Goshawks, sparrowhawks, large gulls, crows, cats and rats also take adults, eggs or chicks.

A pigeon’s body feathers are loosely attached, so a predator that grabs one often ends up with a mouthful of feathers while the bird escapes. Tail feathers can also be shed in a struggle.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List assesses the rock pigeon as Least Concern, because the species, including feral birds, is abundant and widespread. The global figure hides a real conservation issue: genetically wild rock pigeons are disappearing in many regions as feral birds spread and interbreed with them, so pure wild-type birds are now scarce in much of Europe.

Relationship with people

The rock pigeon was probably domesticated in the Middle East or the Mediterranean region about 5,000 years ago, and possibly earlier. Pigeons were kept for food, for their droppings as fertilizer, as messengers and for sport. Breeders have created hundreds of fancy breeds, from tumblers that somersault in flight to fantails and pouters.

Charles Darwin bred pigeons himself and devoted much of the first chapter of On the Origin of Species (1859) to their many breeds. He argued that they all descended from the rock pigeon, using them as a clear example of how selection can change a species.

Homing pigeons carried news, stock prices and military messages for centuries, and in both world wars thousands of birds flew for the armed forces. Today pigeon racing is still a popular sport in Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Taiwan and elsewhere.

Myths and facts

• Myth: pigeons and doves are different kinds of birds. There is no scientific difference. “Pigeon” and “dove” are both common names for members of the same family, and the rock pigeon is also officially called the rock dove.
• Myth: carrier pigeons fly to any address. A homing pigeon only flies back to its own home loft. To send a message, you must carry the receiver’s birds to you first.
• Myth: the extinct passenger pigeon was the same bird. The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was a separate North American species that went extinct in 1914. The rock pigeon is unrelated to its decline.
• Fact: city pigeons are wild cliff birds at heart. Their choice of ledges, bridges and roof spaces copies the cliffs and caves where their ancestors nested.