Dove vs Pigeon: What's the Difference?

Doves and pigeons belong to the same bird family, Columbidae, and “dove” and “pigeon” are two folk names for its members.

The two birds most people have in mind, though, are different species: the Mourning Dove and the Rock Pigeon.

Slim and sandy tan, with black spots on the wings and a long, pointed tail? That’s a Mourning Dove.

A Rock Pigeon is the plump, blue-gray one, with two black bars on each wing and a green and purple shine on its neck.

Neither “dove” nor “pigeon” marks a branch of the family tree.

“Dove” is an old Germanic word, and “pigeon” reached English by another road, through French from Late Latin pipio, a young bird, which comes from the Latin verb for chirping.

The species, though, sit far apart. A Mourning Dove and a Rock Pigeon don’t even share a genus, and if you weighed a typical one of each, the Rock Pigeon would come in at about two and a half times the dove.

These tips for identifying birds in your backyard cover the habits that make any bird easier to name.

Are Pigeons and Doves the Same Bird?

Only in the family sense. Every dove and every pigeon belongs to Columbidae, about 350 species worldwide, and no scientific rule decides which of them get called doves.

In everyday English, “dove” tends to go to the smaller, slimmer species and “pigeon” to the bigger, stockier ones. It’s a loose habit. Plenty of species break it.

German doesn’t even bother. A Rock Pigeon is a Felsentaube and a Mourning Dove a Carolinataube, both of them kinds of Taube.

Their scientific names show the distance between the two familiar birds. The Mourning Dove is Zenaida macroura, and the Rock Pigeon is Columba livia.

The first word of each is the genus, a cluster of close relatives inside a family, and since those first words don’t match, these two birds sit on different branches of the family tree.

That makes them more distant relatives than a Common Raven and an American Crow, which sound like two separate kinds of bird and yet share the genus Corvus.

The raven vs crow comparison shows how to tell that closer pair apart.

What Is a Dove?

A dove is a member of the pigeon family, Columbidae, usually one of the smaller, slimmer species. In North America, the one most people picture is the Mourning Dove.

About the size of an American Robin, it has a small head and a long tail that tapers to a point. The voice is a soft, mournful coo.

Its plumage runs from soft grayish brown to buffy tan, with black spots on the wings and a small black mark on the cheek, and males add a pinkish chest and a blue-gray crown.

“Dove” also carries gentle associations, which is why doves stand for peace and love at weddings and in art, but biologically the word marks out no separate group and is simply a common name for some members of the pigeon family.

A Mourning Dove resting on a branch, showing its black wing spots, black cheek mark, and long pointed tail. Photo: Bonnie Taylor Barry/Shutterstock

What Is a Pigeon?

A pigeon is also a member of Columbidae, usually one of the larger, stockier species. Most people mean the Rock Pigeon, the gray city bird with a green and purple sheen on its neck.

Rock Pigeons are native from Europe to North Africa and India, though their long history with people makes the original range hard to pin down, and the birds in North America came from Europe in the early 1600s.

Mesopotamian tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphics record their domestication more than 5,000 years ago. Today’s city flocks are feral. They descend from domestic birds but live on their own.

The official North American name was Rock Dove until 2003. That year the American Ornithologists’ Union switched it to Rock Pigeon, reluctantly, to match the British list.

Dove vs pigeon at a glance

Feature	Doves (common usage)	Pigeons (common usage)
Size	About 6 to 13 in (ground doves up to Mourning Dove)	About 12 to 16 in (Rock, White-crowned, Band-tailed)
Mourning Dove vs Rock Pigeon	Robin-sized, 9 to 13 in, 3 to 6 oz	Between a robin and a crow, 12 to 14 in, 9 to 13 oz
Build	Slim body, small head	Plump body, small head
Tail	Long and pointed on a Mourning Dove. Square on the Eurasian Collared-Dove and White-winged Dove	Broad and rounded, often with a dark or pale band at the tip
Color	Soft tans, grays, pinkish tones	Bolder grays, often an iridescent neck
Marks to check	Black wing spots (Mourning Dove), black half-collar (Eurasian Collared-Dove), white wing stripe (White-winged Dove)	Two black wing bars (Rock Pigeon), white nape crescent and yellow bill (Band-tailed Pigeon)
Habitat	Yards, fields, woodland edges, deserts	Cities, farms, bridges, western forests (Band-tailed)
Sound	Soft, mournful cooing	Deeper, throaty cooing
Common US species	Mourning Dove, Eurasian Collared-Dove, White-winged Dove	Rock Pigeon, Band-tailed Pigeon

Read each row as a habit of the names, with exceptions running both ways.

How size and shape set them apart

Size works on the two birds people compare most, because even a small Rock Pigeon outweighs a big Mourning Dove.

Mourning Doves, the species most Americans picture when they hear “dove,” are slim birds 9 to 13 inches long and just 3 to 6 ounces.

Shape is more useful than length here. Look at the tail, which is long and tapers to a sharp, white-edged point, a shape no other North American dove has.

Rock Pigeons, the classic city pigeon, are noticeably chunkier. They measure 12 to 14 inches, which overlaps the Mourning Dove, but at 9 to 13 ounces a typical one carries about two and a half times the weight.

The tail is broad and rounded, with a dark band at the tip.

Beyond those two, size tells you less.

At the small end of the family sits the sparrow-sized Common Ground Dove of the far southern US, 6 to 7 inches long. At the other end is the Victoria Crowned Pigeon, considered the largest living pigeon at about 29 inches and 5 pounds.

Both of those follow the naming habit. The trouble is the middle, where a White-crowned Pigeon and a Spotted Dove can both measure 13 inches and a White-winged Dove can match a small Rock Pigeon for length at about half the weight.

Color and plumage patterns

Birds called doves often wear softer color than the ones called pigeons, in sandy tans and gentle grays, sometimes with a pinkish wash on the chest.

Beside a sandy brown Mourning Dove, a Eurasian Collared-Dove looks chalkier and pale gray-buff, with a narrow black crescent across the back of the neck, the half-collar the species is named for.

A Common Wood Pigeon, Europe’s big pigeon, sitting on its stick nest in a city window box. Photo: Roman Nerud/Shutterstock

Pigeons more often go bold. Rock Pigeons wear an iridescent neck that flashes green and purple in sunlight.

A typical one is blue-gray with two black wing bars and a black tail tip. Plenty aren’t. The species also comes checkered, reddish, pied (patched with white), and nearly all white.

That white neck patch on the Common Wood Pigeon above has nothing to do with a collared-dove’s black collar.

And the white “doves” released at weddings? They’re usually white Rock Pigeons.

Release businesses fly white homing pigeons, which are domestic Rock Pigeons bred for the color and for the instinct to return home, and the businesses say true doves lack that instinct.

Do-it-yourself releases sometimes use white Ringneck Doves, a tame form of the African Collared-Dove that people have kept for centuries. Most of those birds die, according to rescuers.

Sounds: how doves and pigeons coo

A dove or pigeon doesn’t have to show itself to be named. Count the coos.

A Mourning Dove’s song starts with a soft coo-oo and follows with two or three louder coos, coo-AHH, cooo, coo, cooo. Usually the singer is an unmated male on a perch.

It’s one of the most familiar bird sounds in North America, and people sometimes take it for an owl.

Rock Pigeons give a rolling string of throaty coos, often while a male struts, bows, puffs out his throat, and fans his tail. Alarmed birds grunt.

Wings make noise, too. A Rock Pigeon often slaps its wingtips together as it lifts off, a sharp clap, while a Mourning Dove’s wings give a loud whistle on takeoff and landing that may startle predators or warn the flock.

Which one whistles? Between these two, the Mourning Dove. The clap helps less, because Mourning Doves can clap much the way Rock Pigeons do.

The Eurasian Collared-Dove’s coo comes in threes, koo-KOO-kook, and it’s shorter, more impatient, and more frequent than a Mourning Dove’s. It also gives a harsh, nasal mew that many people compare to a loud Gray Catbird.

A three-part coo repeated over and over most likely means a collared-dove.

The catch is a paired male Mourning Dove building a nest. He gives a three-part call too, coo-OO-oo, highest in the middle, so count notes on the long song before you decide.

This guide to learning bird songs by ear includes the Mourning Dove, if you want practice.

Behavior and habitat

Pigeon strutting down a city sidewalk? Almost certainly a Rock Pigeon, since the other US pigeons keep to forests and wooded parks in the West, river woods in far South Texas, and southern Florida.

In their native range Rock Pigeons nested on sea cliffs and gorge walls, and around people they make do with window ledges, eaves, and barn lofts.

Mourning Doves turn up nearly anywhere except deep woods, so look in fields, on bare ground and roadsides, along woodland edges, in backyards, deserts, and prairies, and on the wires overhead.

They feed on the ground, which is why millet scattered below a feeder or on a platform tray brings them in.

A Mourning Dove eating from a bird feeder. Photo: Frennet Studio/Shutterstock

In the air and in groups, they behave differently.

• Mourning Doves fly fast and bullet-straight, climbing, dropping, and dodging without warning. Rock Pigeons are strong fliers that can hold high speeds for long stretches.
• Flocks are normal for Rock Pigeons, and the big ones gather in city parks and on farms. Mourning Doves often flock in fall and winter, sometimes in large numbers.

Diet and nesting

Both birds live mostly on seeds and grain. For a Mourning Dove, seeds make up about 99 percent of the diet, anything from farm grains (even peanuts) to wild grasses and weeds, plus the occasional snail.

Rock Pigeons add fruit and, rarely, small invertebrates. In town they lean on bread crumbs and littered food, and some city flocks live largely on handouts.

This guide to what Mourning Doves eat and how to feed them covers feeder setups.

Ever watched one drink? Like every dove and pigeon, it sips by suction, as if pulling water through a straw, without tipping its head back. Most birds scoop a sip and then tilt.

A Mourning Dove drinking with its bill down in the water. Photo: Melody Mellinger/Shutterstock

Neither bird builds much of a nest. A Mourning Dove’s is a flimsy platform of twigs, pine needles, or grass stems, about 8 inches across.

It can sit on a branch, on the ground (especially in the West), in a gutter, under eaves, or even in a cactus. The male gathers twigs and hands them to the female while standing on her back.

Rock Pigeons build a similar thin platform on ledges, under eaves, and in stairwells and gutters, then reuse it brood after brood until the chicks’ droppings turn it into a sturdy mound, sometimes with unhatched eggs and dead nestlings built in.

A pair settled on your porch? This guide to dove eggs and the nesting timeline covers what to expect.

A Mourning Dove sitting on its thin twig nest in an aloe plant. Photo: Ken Wolter/Shutterstock

Dove and pigeon chicks get crop milk from both parents.

The crop is a pouch in the throat for storing food, and in doves and pigeons its lining sheds a fatty, protein-rich secretion with the texture of cottage cheese.

Chicks get it for roughly their first 5 to 10 days. Despite the name it has nothing to do with mammal milk, and outside this family, flamingos and male Emperor Penguins make something similar.

A homing pigeon feeding crop milk to its newly hatched chick. Photo: stockphoto mania/Shutterstock

Why doves and pigeons get different reputations

Doves got the poetry. They stand for peace, love, and purity, and even a person who opposes war gets called a “dove.”

The birds don’t quite match the symbol. Wedding “doves” are usually pigeons, and the Mourning Dove is North America’s most widespread and abundant game bird, with hunters taking more than 20 million a year.

Pigeons got the sidewalk, and the nickname “flying rats.”

That name skips right over homing pigeons, domestic Rock Pigeons that can find their way back from far-off release points, even blindfolded, using the earth’s magnetic field and perhaps sound, smell, and the sun.

The US Army Signal Corps used them to carry messages in both World Wars, and one retired Signal Corps pigeon, Levi, lived to 31.

Pigeons may be the ones everybody notices, but Mourning Doves far outnumber Rock Pigeons in the US.

What about “dirty”? There’s something to it. Pigeons can carry diseases, though for most people outdoors the risk is low, and the trouble comes from old, dried droppings piled up in roosts and attics.

Types of doves and pigeons you’ll see in North America

About a dozen doves and pigeons show up regularly in the US. Which few you can meet depends on where you live.

Almost everywhere

Learn the Mourning Dove first. It’s found across nearly all of the lower 48 and southern Canada, in farm country, suburbs, and deserts alike, and the marks to check are the long pointed tail, the black wing spots, and the black cheek mark.

Every US city has the Rock Pigeon, and so do most farms. Its overall color varies too much to help, so check for two black wing bars, a black band at the tail tip, and the shiny neck.

Reddish birds may be more common in the Southwest.

Most of the country except the Northeast

The Eurasian Collared-Dove is a newcomer.

Pet-shop birds escaped or were released in the Bahamas in the mid-1970s, the species reached Florida in the 1980s, and from there it spread across the continent to towns, farms, and grain yards everywhere but the Northeast, where it’s still only a stray.

At about 11 to 12.5 inches it’s bigger and heftier than a Mourning Dove, pale gray-buff with darker wingtips and a narrow black half-collar on the nape. Young birds may lack a full collar.

A square tail with broad white tips, best seen from below, plus that black half-collar, points to the Eurasian Collared-Dove.

Some southern cities add a complication. Escaped pet Ringneck Doves have gone wild there, and these tame African Collared-Doves are hard to tell from the Eurasian species.

The West

The Band-tailed Pigeon splits its range between two separate parts of the West, the wet forests of the Pacific Coast and the dry mountain forests of the Southwest. It also visits wooded suburban parks, orchards, and feeders, usually in a flock.

Slightly bigger than a Rock Pigeon at 13 to 16 inches, it has a purplish-pink head and breast, a dark-tipped yellow bill, and yellow feet.

A white crescent runs across the back of the neck, and a pale gray band crosses the tail.

Its coo is slow and deep, a lot like an owl’s.

A Band-tailed Pigeon I photographed on a mossy branch in shaded forest, white nape crescent and dark-tipped yellow bill in view. Photo: Jaymi Heimbuch

The South and Southwest

The White-winged Dove is a bird of Southwest deserts and cities, Texas, and coastal cities of the Southeast. Florida has it year-round, and strays wander far north.

Watch the wing. A white stripe runs along its edge when folded and opens into a bold flash in flight. Up close, the eye is orange-red in a patch of blue skin, and the tail is square.

It’s a bit bigger than a Mourning Dove, at 11 to 12.5 inches, but weighs only about half what a Rock Pigeon does. The coo sounds like who-cooks-for-you.

Tiny and scaly? Check the tail.

A long one means the Inca Dove, 7 to 9 inches, found around Southwest towns and farms and spreading north to Colorado.

In flight it shows chestnut underwings and white tail edges, and its wings give a dry rattle. The call sounds like no hope.

On cold days, Inca Doves stack up in a pile to keep warm, a habit called pyramid roosting.

Sparrow-sized and short-tailed, at 6 to 7 inches, the Common Ground Dove keeps to dusty open ground across the southernmost states from California to Florida.

That short tail is black, the bill is pink at the base, and when the bird flushes, its wings flash rusty and give a soft rattle.

A redder look-alike without the scaly breast, the Ruddy Ground Dove, turns up rarely in the Southwest in fall and winter, often with Inca Doves.

Only at the edges of the country

In the US, the White-tipped Dove lives only in the lower Rio Grande Valley woodlands at the southern tip of Texas. Round-bodied and short-tailed, it has pale eyes and no wing spots or cheek mark.

Instead of flocking, it walks the woods quietly. The low, falling coo sounds like someone blowing across a bottle.

The same river has a pigeon, too. Along the lower Rio Grande, the Red-billed Pigeon lives in native woods, uncommon in summer and rare in winter, a very dark bird with a maroon head and chest.

The red bill? Mostly yellowish white, with red only at the base, so the name oversells it.

Dark pigeon with a bright white cap, flying high over the water at dawn or dusk? In southern Florida, especially the Keys and offshore islands, that’s the White-crowned Pigeon. The plumage is slate gray but often looks black.

Around Los Angeles, a shrinking population of Spotted Doves traces back to birds introduced around 1917. They wear a black patch on the back of the neck, dotted with white, and their wings are plain, with no spots.

Frequently asked questions

Are white doves just white pigeons?

Usually, yes. The white birds released at weddings and events are typically white Rock Pigeons bred as homing pigeons. Sometimes they’re white Ringneck Doves.

All-white wild doves are rare. White domestic birds that get loose stand out to hawks, and most don’t last long.

Are Mourning Doves the same as pigeons?

They share a family, Columbidae, but Mourning Doves and Rock Pigeons are different species in different genera, Zenaida and Columba.

Size, color, and habitat all differ. A typical Mourning Dove weighs well under half what a Rock Pigeon does, roughly 40 percent.

Can doves and pigeons interbreed?

Rarely, and mostly in captivity. Crosses between a Mourning Dove and a Rock Pigeon are on record there, and wild Mourning Dove and Eurasian Collared-Dove hybrids have been reported in the US.

One genetic study of 182 doves of four species in the Southwest found six likely recent hybrids, all involving Mourning Doves, and little sign of widespread mixing.

Rock Pigeons of different colors are all one species, and they breed freely.

Do doves and pigeons make the same sounds?

Both coo, but pattern, pitch, and rhythm vary by species. A Mourning Dove’s soft, owl-like song sounds very different from a Rock Pigeon’s rolling, throaty cooing.

Do pigeons carry diseases?

They can, but for most people outdoors the risk is low, and fresh droppings on sidewalks and windowsills likely don’t pose a histoplasmosis risk.

Built-up dried droppings are the problem. In roosts, attics, and on balconies those can carry fungi and, rarely, psittacosis bacteria, so if you’re cleaning old droppings out, avoid breathing the dust, and take the most care if your immune system is weakened.

Why are pigeons so common in cities?

Rock Pigeons are cliff nesters by nature, and a building makes a good stand-in cliff, with ledges for nests and people dropping plenty of food.

It helps that city flocks descend from domestic birds, which people have kept for more than 5,000 years.

Is a pigeon a dove?

In the family sense, yes. Every pigeon and dove belongs to Columbidae, so calling a dove a pigeon is technically correct. English just tends to save “pigeon” for larger species and “dove” for smaller ones, with no science behind the split.

Are doves and pigeons the same species?

No. Doves and pigeons make up one family of about 350 species. A Mourning Dove and a Rock Pigeon are separate species in separate genera, and whether a bird gets called a dove or a pigeon comes down to language and loose size habits.

Is a Rock Dove the same as a pigeon?

Yes. Rock Dove is the older English name for the Rock Pigeon, Columba livia. It officially became Rock Pigeon in 2003, though many people still say Rock Dove.

Feral city birds and homing pigeons both belong to this one species.

How can you tell if a bird is a pigeon or a dove?

A small head, a cooing voice, and the habit of sipping water without lifting the head all point to the pigeon family. From there, “dove” usually goes to the slimmer, smaller species and “pigeon” to the bigger ones.

With the two found almost everywhere in the US, check the tail. It’s long and pointed on a Mourning Dove, broad and dark-tipped on a Rock Pigeon.

Whatever you call them, it’s the species name that’s worth learning, because it tells you which mark to check first next time, along with where the bird lives and how it sounds.

Falcons and hawks are another pair people mix up, and this falcon vs hawk identification guide sorts them out.

A feeder camera gets you a closer look at your own doves without spooking them. Start with these picks for the best bird feeder cameras.

Free tool from Better With Birds: Enter your ZIP and see which birds are likely at your feeder this month. It runs on public bird-occurrence records, and it's free with no email.