Ten cool woodpigeon facts (and two more bonus!)

Milk. As other pigeons, both Woodpigeon parents produce crop-milk, a rich milk-like substance that they feed to their young chicks.

Pigeon showers. One of the most curious behaviour of Woodpigeons is how they seem to enjoy the rain, opening their wings and exposing their underside to the rain.

The power of wings. Woodpigeons fight with their wings. Their bills are not strong and their legs quite short, but they have strong chest muscles. These allow a strong, powerful flight allowing them to take off almost vertically from the spot to avoid predation.

Migration. We see Woodpigeons around us all year, they even breed year round. However Woodpigeons from more northerly areas migrate to warmer climates in the winter in huge numbers.

Climbing. Despite their size, Woodpigeons are surprisingly nimble. Their short legs won't allow them to walk very fast, but they make them more maneuvrable when they are on trees and also allows them to dangle from thin branches to reach food, often helped by balancing with their wings and tail.

Twins. Woodpigeons almost always lay 2 eggs, although they can produce several broods each year. The two young will accompany the parents for some time after leaving the nest.

Diet. Although they do cause agricultural damages by feeding on grain, young crops, or cherries, Woodpigeons take a lot of wild food from trees and bushes. They eat buds, catkins, flowers (horse chestnuts are favoured), berries and fruit and they love acorns and beech nuts. In the spring, they will feed on the ground on the young leaves of weeds.

Rest. Woodpigeons spend much of their daytime resting. They literally sit, hunched on a branch and digest the food they've been eating.

Courtship Display. Woodpigeons display is wonderful to watch. The male stands by the female bowing and calling, he fans its tail as he bows, and closes it as it stands. During courtship by established couples, the pair preen each other and the male feeds the female.

Flocks. Woodpigeons usually feed in flocks. This behaviour gives them protection against predator, the larger the flock, the quicker the woodpigeons are spotting a predator, as more eyes are watching and giving them more time to escape. Sparrowhawks, Goshawks and Peregrines are amongst Woodpigeon predators.

Sunbathing. Woodpigeons love basking in the sunshine. They rest on the ground and spread their tail and wings.

Drinking. As other pigeons, and unlike other birds, Woodpigeons are able to suck water directly from the water surface.

Woodpigeons calls and displays

Although the woodpigeon is the bird I come across most often and the one I record the most, it is still one of my favourite birds, the species that made me a birdwatcher. I find them truly stunning and very resourceful, feeling at ease in gardens, parks and woodland alike. Despite their reputation as grain guzzlers their diet includes leaves, nuts (acorns and beech mast), buds, flowers and berries, including rowan, ivy, holly, cotoneaster and alder, which they often reach with great acrobatics. Although Woodpigeons have featured often in this blog, here I am compiling and documenting their calls and displays, especially those related to reproductive behaviour. Although in his article on woodpigeon behaviour Cramp says that 'they mark their ownership of a territory primarily by just being there' as indeed 'a Woodpigeon perched in a tree bare of leaves is a large and conspicuous object' Woodpigeons have a simple, but interesting behavioural repertoire.

Advertisement call. A deep, repeated 5 note phrase that serves as a territorial song. This is the well know Woodpigeon song, often heard early in the morning.

Display flight. This is another territorial display most frequent in February and March. The male flies around the territory rising in a broad arc, and then gliding down with wings held stiffly horizontal advertising ownership. They can do the rising and falling a few times before alighting. Although mainly a visual advertising display, as the bird does not call, sometimes the bird will make a clapping noise with its wings at the apex of the arc.

The Bow display. It is a courtship display that territorial males perform when still unpaired and trying to attract a mate and also when the pair bond is becoming cemented. The male approaches the female and with his neck enlarged he calls a three note call as he alternatively stretches up and then lowers its head, displaying the white and iridescent neck markings, and fanning the tail when it's at its highest. Check out this wonderful photo by Richard Hawley showing the display when fanning is at its maximum. Females can display some aggressiveness to the courting male, move away or flee if they are not interested. This display often happens on trees, roofs or aerials, but occasionally on the ground. When on the ground the male will try and get closer and follow the female hopping to bow just in front of her, one of the few occasions that woodpigeons will hop instead of walking.

Allopreening, billing and mating. Feeding the mate, gentle preening and billing precedes mating. I documented this behaviour in a series of photos here.

Slightly opened wings is a threat posture.

Fighting. Woodpigeons have large chest muscles, which power their explosive take off and fast flight. They have small bills and legs, so they also use their wings as offensive weapons in their territorial fights. Males will fly towards intruders landing in their territory and land adopting an aggressive stance, with neck stretched, flattened plumage and semi-open wings, and often this is enough to drive the intruder away. Occasionally, this develops into a fight, which sometimes occur in the depths of a tree. The pigeons will land near each other, alight their bodies and flap trying to hit each other (above).      
                                         
Nest calling. This is a call by the male signalling to his partner a suitable nest site. I've covered this on other posts (here and here) and it is described in detail in the article by Cramp cited below. The call is harsh, and guttural composed of two notes, here is a recording of the call. I want to share here a video I took this morning, in which I got a good angle. You can see pecking or nodding movements to the nest floor in between calls:




More information
Cramp, S. Territorial and other Behaviour of the Woodpigeon. Bird Study 5, 55–66 (1958). here.

Beach pigeons

In my recent holidays, it wasn't only the local Carrion Crows that visited the beach at low tide, Woodpigeons and Collared Doves regularly popped in. The first day I noticed a Collared dove on the sea defences pecking on something, when I looked closer I realised it was eating seaweed (Fucus spiralis, I believe), something I hadn't seen a bird do before.

Collared Dove enjoying some seaweed on the sea defences, as they do.

I took a video the following day.


In subsequent days I watched the visiting woodpigeons, which were keen beachcombers...

...but when a female landed on the beach, a male keenly followed her courting.

As the collared doves, they also ate seaweed, drank seawater (!) and waded in the waves. Don't take my word for it and watch the following clip.

Woodpigeon mating

Although the Woodpigeon must be one of the most abundant and familiar British birds, a few days ago I was lucky to watch their courtship and mating at very close quarters, when a pair landed on the garden fence. I should have taken a video, but instead I ended taking a series of photos, which don't cover the full sequence. I saw, but did not photograph, the initial courtship feeding.

1. The male (on the right) had just fed the female, both move the bills, like swallowing. They are right next to each other and excited, note the contracted pupil in the male. The female sits down, crouching, inviting copulation.

2. The male mounts the female, balancing with wings open.

3. The male stabilises on top of the female, which remains motionless, with  wings spread (to make male balancing easier?).

4. Copulation, male flaps for balance, female leans forward lifting tail.

5. The male jumps onto the left of the photo, both partners (which are extremely alike in colour and size) fluff their neck patch and bow their heads in what looks like an aggressive display. These are woodpigeons in all their splendour, what amazingly beautiful birds they are!

6. The female actually turns away from the male, not a brilliant shot but shows how the neck patch feathers are raised. The pupil is very contracted.

7. The male remains in the post-copulation display.

8. Both pair members come together again and preen (I think the female is now on the right, and shows the initiative in caressing the male neck and head area).

9. The caressing carried on for a while.

Four calling pigeons

I had this little project in my mind for a long time, to get photos of all four local pigeon species as they call. What I had not anticipated was that I would do in in a single day in the space of 15 minutes, all in a very small area. All pigeons are now in full blown song and courtship. When I spotted the Woodpigeon above, he wasn't calling, it appeared to be just enjoying the sun, but as I walked away, I heard it calling and I turned back. The noise of the roadworks didn't stop it calling.

It is unusual to see a Collared Dove calling in the park.

Not much further away, a Stock Dove started calling. This ash is their favourite tree, and most of the time there are two or three there. Stock doves are quite timid, and they call from high vantage points.

To end the series, it wasn't too hard to find the courting Feral Pigeons, there were plenty around. This male and watchful female were on the roof of the cafe at Pearson Park. 

Woodpigeon fledgling chasing parent for food

I saw a young woodpigeon fledgling by the pond today, it shook its wings occasionally like young to when they demand food and I noticed an adult was nearby. The young one caught up the the parent and touched its bill, to which the adult responded by regurgitating food. The young continued chasing the adult for quite some time, regularly managing to be fed. The size different between both is quite noticeable in the top shot. 

 Young woodpigeons are much drabber, greyer than adults, without a pinkish tinge. Legs and bill also lack the red and orange hues of the adult, and the bill does not have a developed cere or operculum, the swollen covering covering the base of the bill. Young woodpigeons have dark eyes and lack the parents neck markings. Although their smaller size and black eyes makes them similar to a Stock dove, they still have the trademark white woodpigeon wing-bar.

A side view of the fledgling

I also took a video of the sequence. 

Woodpigeon nest calling

This Woodpigeon was nest calling 'coo, crrroooo!' from a fork in a still bare ash tree atop a nest (possibly an old one). Male Woodpigeons sign like this to their mates pointing to a suitable nest site and apparently also stimulating ovulation. Read more about this calling behaviour in this post from The Rattling Crow archives.

Tiny legs

Not the best photo, but I like how it shows that Woodpigeons have really tiny legs, not really ideal for walking, but for keeping their balance when they feed in trees. In fact, when Woodpigeons are in a hurry on the ground, such as chasing a partner during courtship or approaching an opponent in a fight, they often hop a few times instead of running.

Gobbling up acorns

In the last few weeks it has become apparent that this is an acorns mast year, a bumper year for these seeds - and also for many berries. The evergreen oaks in my local park have not been an exception: Grey Squirrels and Woodpigeons are enjoying this bonanza and feeding on fallen acorns on the ground and the remaining ones in the tree. Today a large flock of Woodpigeons, including many juveniles, feasted on acorns in the park. I managed to record some videos of the feeding activities of the Woodpigeons in the trees and the ground underneath. I find it amazing that the Woodpigeons swallow the acorns whole, presumably their digestive system dissolving the tough shells.
At some point in the sequence, something scared the woodpigeons and most of the flock took to the air. The one I was filming stayed put in the tree, looking up nervously.

Woodpigeons showing off

Woodpigeons come regularly to my bird table. These two arrived within a couple of minutes. I am not sure if they were a pair, but I doubt it, as they were not happy to be feeding so close. They alternated between feeding peacefully, and facing each other standing high on their tiptoes, chests up, measuring each other up. A bit of wing flapping occasionally - that is how woodpigeons fight, slapping each other with their powerful wings - but mostly just posturing. The photo was capture with my remote control camera.

Thrushes and whitebeam berries

Whitebeams, a tree related to the rowan, is fruiting now. They have contrasting good and bad years in fruiting (masting trees), and the fruits do not last long, becoming brown and shriveled in about a month from ripening, but berries are large fruits with a lot of pulp compared to the seed content, so they are very rewarding food when available.
Woodpigeons and Crows like the fruit, and so do all thrushes, but they are too large for Robins, Blackcaps and Starlings. They are also eaten (pecked as opposed to eaten whole) or their seeds predated by Blue Tits, Chaffinches and Greenfinches.
 In my local park yesterday, there was a strong contrast between the colour of the fruits of a line of whitebeams. One of them had the brightest red berries, and Woodpigeons and Blackbirds were feeding on it. Note the bulging crop of the Blackbird in the photo above.
 Two trees at the other end of the line had still many unripe berries and as a flock of mixed finches and tits, including goldfinches, chaffinches and great and blue tits descended on it. Suddenly, it became apparent this tree had an owner. A Mistle Thrush started churring vigorously from its centre, while flicking its wings and tail. It seems to make little impact on the little birds, although it kept going for quite a while.

Woodpigeon feeding amongst the berries

Mistle thrush on guard.

And the very nervous one in this short clip.

More information
Snow, B. K., & Snow, D. (2011). Birds and berries. A&C Black. In Google Books.

Woodpigeon school

I have come across several Woodpigeon families in the last week. August and September are peak season for Woodpigeon fledglings. One or both adults will accompany, and occasionally feed the young for a week or two. The fledglings look nervous and follow each other or their parents, feeding on the ground. After the adults leave them to their devices, the usually two siblings will move together or join other juveniles.
 In these photos, you can see the differences between the juveniles and the adult at the background. Juveniles are much smaller, they lack of white patch on the neck (but not the striated neck feathers), the beak is a dull grey and their eyes are dark.

Woodpigeon eating elderberries

The elders are now fully laden with a plentiful berry harvest. Early this morning, a group of nervous starlings came up and down to one, feeding on the berries. A relaxed woodpigeon stretched and fed as well. The light wasn't perfect, and the birds a bit far, but I like that the berry bunches are still pretty much intact. Elder provides berries from mid August to early November. In their monograph on Birds and Berries, Barbara and David Snow recorded 16 species of seed dispersers and 6 of seed predators feeding on elder berries, the largest diversity of species for any other fruit. Numerically, Starlings were the most common, followed by Blackbirds, but other thrushes, migrating warblers, robins, corvids and even moorhens were recorded feeding on berries. Woodpigeons, after Blue Tits, were the main seed predators, although woodpigeons can also be seed dispersers of this fruit.

Woodpigeon portrait

Woodpigeons are one of my favourite birds. It was the first species I identified through a bird guide (in Spain, it is not as widespread in towns and much shier than here). I took this photo yesterday, a Woodpigeon just sitting on a roof, just like they do.

Nest building woodpigeons

On a walk in my local park, I came across two different Woodpigeons collecting nest material. This is likely to be the second brood of the season. I stopped to try and get some shots of the second one. The nest was in a large Horse Chestnut. The Woodpigeon would come to the ground, walk to the pile of sticks that had fallen from the nest, peck them until one suited him, and then fly up to the tree. Occasionally, the stick would come tumbling down a few seconds later. I wonder if they were in the early stages of nest building and the platform wasn't stable enough. Usually one of the individuals of the pair bring the nest material to the other, which is sitting on the nest, and this individual arranges the sticks.
 I had a long session while sitting at the base of the horse chestnut. Every couple of minutes or so, I would have a chance to take a shot or two of the woodpigeon choosing a stick or flying up. The woodpigeon continued its merry-go-round taking no notice of me.