All species › Pigeons and doves › Doves and pigeons › Rock Pigeon
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Rock Pigeon | Columba livia
Rotsduif | Paloma bravía
The Rock Pigeon is an introduced species in the guide area: it does not occur here naturally. The Spanish brought domestic pigeons to the Americas in the sixteenth century, and their feral descendants, the town pigeons, now live in almost every town and village from Mexico to Panama. Wild Rock Pigeons do not occur in the guide area.
Voice
A low, rolling coo, oorroo-coo, mainly during display. The wings clap loudly on take-off.
Recording: Stanislas Wroza — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
31–34 cm. A heavy, stocky pigeon with a small head and a fairly short tail. The original form is blue-grey, with a darker head, a green and purple glossed neck, two black wing bars, a white rump and a dark terminal tail band. Town pigeons are highly variable: from almost black and chequered to reddish-brown, pied or entirely white, but many birds resemble the original form. The eye is orange, the bill dark with a white cere, the legs red.
Confusion species
Band-tailed Pigeon Patagioenas fasciata, in montane forest, has a yellow bill, a white half-collar and a pale terminal tail band, and no wing bars. Red-billed Pigeon Patagioenas flavirostris is wine-red on the head and breast, with a red bill base. Eurasian Collared-Dove Streptopelia decaocto is slimmer and sandy, with a black collar and a long tail.
Habitat
Towns, villages, squares, markets, churches, bridges, ports and industrial areas, and the fields and grain stores around them. Nests on ledges and in cavities in buildings. Feeds on seeds, grain and waste, often in flocks on squares and streets.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Established throughout the guide area in towns and villages, from Baja California and northern Mexico to Panama; almost absent from natural areas far from settlements. Native to Europe, North Africa and south-western Asia; introduced worldwide as the town pigeon.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Seen on almost every central square, at churches and in markets. To find the original pattern, look for the white rump and the two black wing bars.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. In the guide area an introduced species that lives almost only in built-up areas.
Scientific name
Columba livia | Gmelin, 1789
Gmelin described the species in 1789 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Columba was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. Columba is Latin for 'dove' and goes back to Greek kolumbos 'diver', from kolumbaō 'to dive, to swim'; classical writers used it of the rock dove for the swimming stroke of its wings in flight. livia is a Medieval Latin variant of livida 'livid, bluish grey', Theodorus Gaza's rendering of Greek peleia 'dove', itself from pellos 'dark-coloured'. The specimen the first description was based on came from southern Europe.