Rock dove or feral

  •  Saw these 3 this morning, could they be rock doves or am I being optimistic?
  • I'm going to stick my neck out here, rock dove, based on the double bars on the wings.

    But, brace yourself, I'm often wrong, so hopefully someone will give us the right answer.

  • Thank you, fingers crossed hey
  • What you've got to remember is that Rock Doves are the ancestors of all domestic Pigeons as explained HERE. They are the same species, that is Columba livia. It's debatable whether there are any true wild Rock Doves left in the UK. Maybe on some remote western isles in Scotland.

    In the case of your two pigeons they have retained the plumage of their wild ancestors but they are clearly feral because the are ringed. I suspect they have gone AWOL from some pigeon fancier's collection.

    ____________________________________________________________________

    Tony

    My Flickr Photostream 

  • Thank you, there are 3 of them all together, actually a nice change from all the wood pigeons
  • Unknown said:

    What you've got to remember is that Rock Doves are the ancestors of all domestic Pigeons as explained HERE. They are the same species, that is Columba livia. It's debatable whether there are any true wild Rock Doves left in the UK. Maybe on some remote western isles in Scotland.

    In the case of your two pigeons they have retained the plumage of their wild ancestors but they are clearly feral because the are ringed. I suspect they have gone AWOL from some pigeon fancier's collection.

    I hadn't seen the leg rings in my original response, the image was on a small screen and not clear when zoomed in, so I'm changing to feral.