Common Wood Pigeon

Voice

Five syllables with the stress on the second: coo-cooo-coo, coo-coo, repeated and then cut off with a short extra note. Soporific and endlessly repeated. Heard from February into September. On flushing it claps its wings loudly, which serves as an alarm for other birds.

Identification

Bulky, with a small head on a heavy body. Adults show a white neck patch beside a glossy green-purple side-neck, a pink breast, a pale eye and a yellow-and-pink bill with a white cere. In flight a broad white band crosses each wing, unmistakable. Juveniles lack the white neck patch and have dull dark eyes.

Confusion species

Stock Dove is smaller and greyer, with no white on neck or wing, dark eyes and short black wing-bars. Feral pigeons vary endlessly but always show a white rump and two black wing-bars. Collared Dove is paler and longer-tailed, with a black neck collar rather than a white patch.

Habitat

Woods, hedgerow trees, parks, avenues, gardens and leafy villages; feeds mostly in the open on arable land, grassland and brassica fields. Roosts and nests in trees, including dense ivy and conifers in the middle of cities, where it now breeds at very high density.

Range and movements

All of Europe east to western Siberia, and in north-west Africa. Dutch birds are largely resident, but in October and November enormous numbers of northern birds stream along the coast and over the Pyrenees. In Spain it is abundant in oak woods and dehesas, wintering on acorns.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

For migration, watch the first two hours after sunrise in late October and early November from a coastal watchpoint or a ridge. For display, March and April: males climb steeply, clap the wings at the top and glide down on stiff wings in a long shallow arc.

Conservation status

Numerous and increasing, above all in towns and villages where winter survival is better than in the countryside. Farmers treat it as a pest on brassicas and young cereals. Disease such as trichomoniasis can kill many birds locally, but the overall population picture stays favourable.