Pure Rock Dove? (1 Viewer)

[Dougie Preston]

This birds been hanging out with my "pure" Rock Doves for about a Month now.

It is structurally and behaviorally identical to them, and only the colour worries me. The bird is also unringed.

Do we have Feral Pigeons infiltrating the ranks, or is this just a melanistic or some how aberrant Rock Dove?

 

[Strontium Dog]

Every colour variation you see in town pigeons comes from Rock Doves, so it's entirely possible this is a "pure" Rock Dove which happens to have this colouration naturally.

To me, they're all just pigeons

 

[durham giant]

There are so many variations of both wild and feral rock doves that it is so hard to tell which is which

 

[Atricapilla]

I don't think there is any way of telling Dougie,one of the local farmers here has some fancy white doves and they keep trying to fly with the flock of rock doves feeding on the stubble at the moment.

 

[Dougie Preston]

The main reason I was wondering about this bird, is that we have had a few racing/feral birds passing through, but they are always obvious and never hang around long. They also don't seem to associate with the Rock Doves, but this one seems to have been accepted by them, as one of them!

 

[Atricapilla]

Lets hope its a melanistic then !!!