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Yep, they're pigeons, the kind you toss breadcrumbs to in the park or in Piazza San Marco. The official English-language name used to be "Rock Dove" --as in, "that's no pigeon -- that's a Rock Dove!" The birding bureaucracy has now directed us to call it a pigeon after all, but we must add the prefix "Rock" to make clear that we are scientifically-minded birders, not associated with the pigeon-feeding hordes. Our domestic pigeons in fact derive from a European wild dove species. The top and bottom birds are pretty close to the original, while the middle one has been bred much further away. |
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