Group Of Pigeons Waiting Owner To Open Their Houses On a Rooftop Birdcage

Group Of Pigeons Waiting Owner To Open Their Houses On a Rooftop Birdcage , The Columbinae, the typical, or true, pigeons, consists of about 175 species in about 30 genera. These often gregarious seed and fruit eaters are found worldwide in temperate and tropical regions. Some are ground feeders, others feed partly or wholly in trees. They are generally coloured soft gray and brown to black, sometimes with iridescent patches on the plumage.

The cosmopolitan genus Columba—including the Old World wood pigeons and the New World band-tailed pigeons—is classified in this group, along with the Streptopelia species, the Old World turtledoves and ringdoves. To this genus also belong the street pigeons so common in urban areas.

These are composed of a bewildering array of crossbreeds of domesticated strains, all of them ultimately traceable to the Old World rock dove (Columba livia). The rock dove is typically dull in colour—gray and white rump and two large black wing bars; this Eurasian species nests above 5,000 feet (1,525 metres) in Asia.

It has been domesticated and selectively bred since 3000 bce with the production of numerous colour variants and about 200 named strains—show pigeons, racing pigeons, and large edible types. Among such strains, pouter pigeons have a large, inflatable gullet; carrier pigeons have a long bill; runts, a massive bill and body; barbs, a short bill.

Fantails may have 42 tail feathers; owl pigeons have diverging throat feathers; frillbacks, the feathers reversed; jacobins, hoodlike neck feathers. Tumblers tumble backward in flight.