Birds of the Upper Cumberland Region: Species Accounts

Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)

Abundance: Common at all seasons; recorded in all Regional counties (Map of UCR Distribution); the Regional population is probably stable (see also Regional Bird-Monitoring Plan).

Status: Permanent Resident; photograph [lateral view of wild-type adult] (Stephen J. Stedman; Buffalo Valley, Putnam County, Tennessee; 28 December 2011); photograph [ventral view of wild-type adult] (Stephen J. Stedman; White's Bend Rd., Jackson County, Tennessee; 28 December 2011).

Regional High Count and CBC/CBB High Count: 398 (1 January 2011; Pulaski County, Kentucky [Somerset CBC]; m. ob.); FBC/FBB High Count: 277 (20 September 2003; Putnam County, Tennessee [FBC]; m. ob.]; SBC/SBB High Count: 140 (13 May 2000; Putnam County, Tennessee [SBC]; m. ob.).

Breeding: Confirmed (Recent). Breeds in all months of the year in some parts of its range, but confirmed breeding during the winter months is rare or absent in the Region, probably because searches for breeding evidence are rarely conducted at that season.

Habitat: The Rock Pigeon is a patchily and variably distributed species. The largest Regional populations inhabit towns and villages of the Region, but smaller components of the Regional population are also partial to farmyards and other agricultural areas with silos or other tall, open-air structures, as wells as to bridges with accessible perches on their undersides, even in quite remote areas.  An even smaller part of the Regional population may be found at natural sites such as those presumably used prehistorically, and to some degree historically, in the Old World.  The high cliffs formed near the falls in Burgess Falls State Natural Area, Putnam County, Tennessee; near the falls in Fall Creek Falls State Resort Park, Van Buren County, Tennessee; and near the swimming area in Rock Island State Park, White and Warren counties, Tennessee, are examples of natural sites currently inhabited by small numbers of this dove.

YardWatch Results 2003 and 2004: Registered on 7 (of 125) monthly check-lists during 2003 and on 24 (of 206) check-lists during 2004, leading to YardWatch frequency classifications of Very Uncommon and Uncommon, respectively; these YardWatch frequency classifications are considerably inconsistent with the Regional abundance classification, indicating that the pigeon is encountered in Regional yards and neighborhoods much less often than in the Region as a whole.

Foray Results: A summary of data from UCR Forays follows (to view a map displaying foray data for a county or a sub-Region for this species, click on the name of an underlined county or state below):

* Because some foray blocks fall into two or three counties, the total of blocks in the Kentucky or Tennessee portions of the Region is less than the sum of the blocks in the counties of each portion of the Region; similarly, because some blocks fall into both states, the total of blocks for the Region is less than the sum of the blocks in the two states.

Remarks: Formerly known as the Rock Dove, this species was for many decades not listed on Christmas Bird Counts; consequently, CBC data about this species from the early and middle parts of the Twentieth Century are absent, an unfortunate circumstance revealing the tendency of early field workers to reflect a bigotry in their bird-counting.  Similar bird-counting bigotries are doubtless still present in the current cohort of CBC field workers; these need to be recognized and then rectified.

    Like the starling and the House Sparrow, this columbid is an exotic, imported from the Old into the New World sometime during the colonization of the latter hemisphere. Like its Old World original, this species in North America displays many plumage and behavioral  variations; these variations form a part of the evidence for evolution in Charles Darwin's monumental work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859).

    The graceful flight behavior of this dove when descending to its evening roost caught the attention of Wallace Stevens, an American poet of the Twentieth Century.   Stevens concludes "Sunday Morning" with this description:  "... and, at evening, casual flocks of pigeons make ambiguous undulations as they drop, downward to darkness, on extended wings."  Stevens generally but accurately describes this flight behavior, which becomes in the poem a metaphor for the human condition.

    Rock Pigeons of many types are kept by pigeon-fanciers, sometimes for the purpose of racing them long distances. A highly important by-product of this hobby was realized during World War II, when racing pigeons carried vital messages about the progress of the war on the continent to Allied commanders in England. Indeed, for a time all Peregrine Falcons along the English coast were shot on sight to protect the pigeons returning to England from the continent with such news. Unhappily in America today, some pigeon-fanciers continue to persecute raptors without similar justification; in some notorious cases pigeon-fanciers have been prosecuted for engaging in this persecution, which is a violation of state and federal laws protecting migratory birds including all raptors.

    Pigeon-fanciers often band pigeons that fly free; however, information about the banded birds cannot be obtained from the Bird Banding Laboratory; there may be websites devoted to processing information about such birds, so if you find a banded Rock Pigeon, try googling "racing pigeons" and see what shows up.

Check-lists of Birds for the Counties of the UCR

Check-lists of the birds of each county of the Upper Cumberland Region may be viewed by clicking on the links below. For each county, there are two check-lists: one list that shows the species that have been observed and where possible documented in the county within the larger list for the entire Region; and one list that includes only the species observed in the county with annotations for the date and observers for at least one sighting (the ultimate goal of the latter list will be to include annotations for the very first known Regional observation of each species in that county; this goal is probably one that will take many years to complete, if completion is even a possibility). To see if the species discussed in this species account has been observed in a county, click below or click on the link for the Map of UCR Distribution near the top of the page.

Check-lists of Birds for Some Public Access Birding Sites of the UCR

Check-lists of the birds of some public access birding sites within the Upper Cumberland Region may be viewed via the links below. To see if the species dealt with in this species account has been observed within any of these sites, click on the appropriate link below. See the pages for each county within the Gazetteer for links to additional smaller public access birding sites with check-lists in progress.

Literature Cited