Dove vs Pigeon: Is There Any Real Difference Between Them?

Key differences at a glance

The Columbidae family contains around 350 living species, found on every continent except Antarctica. Scientists use only the family name and the scientific names of each species; “dove” and “pigeon” are common names that grew up separately in English.

The two birds most people in North America compare are the mourning dove, a native wild dove, and the rock pigeon, the familiar city pigeon. They do differ in size, shape, color, habits and voice, as the table above shows, but those are differences between two species, not between two kinds of bird.

Where the names come from

The word “dove” comes from an old Germanic root and has been used in English for well over a thousand years. “Pigeon” arrived later, borrowed from French after the Norman Conquest; the French word originally meant a young, cheeping bird.

For centuries English speakers used the two words fairly loosely. Over time, “dove” stuck to many smaller, more delicate species, such as turtle doves and collared doves, while “pigeon” was used for larger birds like the wood pigeon and for the domestic birds kept in dovecotes for food, messages and sport.

The rock pigeon shows how arbitrary the names are. Its formal English name was “rock dove” for a long time. North American bird checklists changed it to “rock pigeon” in 2003, while many international and British lists still call it the rock dove. Same bird, same scientific name, Columba livia.

Size and shape: the loose rule of thumb

The traditional tendency does hold up for these two birds:

• Mourning dove: slim and long-tailed, 23–34 cm (9–13 in) long and only 96–170 g (3.4–6.0 oz). The long, pointed tail makes up much of its length.
• Rock pigeon: stocky and heavy, 29–36 cm (11.4–14.2 in) long and 265–380 g (9.3–13.4 oz), roughly twice the weight of a mourning dove, with a short, fan-shaped tail.

But there are plenty of exceptions elsewhere in the family. The spinifex pigeon of Australia is a small bird, much the same size as many doves, while some species called doves are fairly large. The crowned pigeons of New Guinea, which can reach about 70–75 cm (28–30 in) in length, are the largest living members of the family, and the extinct dodo of Mauritius was a giant flightless relative, as explained in was the dodo a pigeon?

Color and markings

A mourning dove is soft gray-brown and buff with black spots on the wings, a small dark mark below the eye and white tips on its tail feathers. Males have a faint pink breast and a blue-gray crown.

A wild-type rock pigeon is blue-gray with two bold black bars across each wing, a white rump in many populations, a dark band at the tip of the tail and a shimmering green and purple neck. City pigeons descend from domestic birds, so they come in many other patterns too: checkered, all-dark, reddish-brown, white or patchy.

Habitat, range and nests

The mourning dove is native to the Americas, from southern Canada to Central America and the Caribbean. It lives on farmland, prairies, woodland edges, deserts and suburbs, and nests mainly in trees and shrubs, on a famously flimsy platform of twigs.

The rock pigeon’s wild ancestors lived on sea cliffs and rocky gorges in Europe, North Africa and southwestern Asia, nesting on ledges and in caves. Domesticated thousands of years ago, pigeons were carried around the world, and European settlers brought them to North America in the early 1600s. Today feral pigeons live in towns and cities on every inhabited continent, using building ledges, bridges and rooftops as artificial cliffs.

Behavior and voice

Both species feed mainly on seeds picked up from the ground and walk with a head-bobbing gait. Both are strong, fast fliers.

Their calls are easy to tell apart. The mourning dove gives a slow, sad “cooOOoo, woo, woo, woo” that is often mistaken for an owl; see what does a mourning dove sound like? The rock pigeon makes a softer, gurgling, rolling “coo-roo-coo”, often while a male puffs up his neck, bows and turns in circles in front of a female.

Breeding habits differ too. Mourning doves nest mainly from spring to fall, though in the south they can breed in most months. City pigeons, with food available all year and sheltered ledges, may breed in every month of the year, raising one brood after another. Their chicks stay hidden on ledges until they are nearly adult size, which is why baby pigeons are so rarely noticed.

Pigeons are usually seen in tight, busy flocks around people, while mourning doves are more often seen in pairs or loose groups, though they also flock in winter.

What they have in common

Underneath the names, doves and pigeons share the family’s distinctive features:

• Crop milk: both parents produce a rich, protein-packed secretion in the crop lining to feed their newly hatched chicks, something only a few other birds, such as flamingos and male emperor penguins, do in a similar way; see what is crop milk?
• Small clutches: typically two white eggs, often with several broods per year
• Drinking by suction: they can drink in one long draw without lifting the head, unlike most birds
• Monogamy: pairs share incubation and chick-rearing
• Cooing: calls made with the bill closed, by puffing up part of the throat

Why does “dove” sound nicer?

Doves carry a positive image, as symbols of peace, love and gentleness. The dove with an olive branch from the story of Noah, and Picasso’s famous dove poster of 1949, made the white dove a worldwide emblem of peace.

Pigeons, by contrast, are often seen as city pests. Yet the “doves” released at weddings are usually white domestic pigeons, and pigeons have a long record of service to people, from carrying messages in wartime to helping scientists study navigation. The difference is in our language and attitudes, not in the birds themselves.