Talk:Columbidae

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 February 2019 and 17 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RameyEA, Kurtames.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Description Section
I have edited the Description section to be a bit more organized and added some material with reference. Please let me know what you all think and if you have any suggestions for further improvement. RameyEA (talk) 06:37, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Intelligence Section?
I believe studies of pigeon cognitive ability have revealed some interesting facts, among them that they seem to do better with the "Monty Hall" problem than humans.

Perhaps this and under studies should be mentioned in a "Pigeon Cognition" section.--Jrm2007 (talk) 04:19, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Missing information in 'Taxonomy and systematics'
I've flagged the Taxonomy and systematics section as confusing because it starts talking about specific drinking behaviour of Columbiformes without introducing the concept. I am not an expert in this area and so I am simply flagging it as an issue. cuttellhell 02:04, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 31 August 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not Moved Mike Cline (talk) 13:58, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Columbidae → Pigeon – better conforms to naming conventions like WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, and WP:USEENGLISH. WP:PLURAL should be circumvented here because "Dove and pigeon" just doesn't sound right.–Prisencolin (talk) 04:17, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Or just Pigeon. There is no scientific difference between doves and pigeons, with closely related species having different styles (Wood pigeon/Stock dove) and individual species sometimes sharing versions (rock dove|feral pigeon) Jimfbleak (talk) 05:36, 31 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I would also prefer just Pigeon per Jimfbleak. Compare Cormorant for a similar situation (which covers both "cormorants" and "shags", i.e. Phalacrocoracidae). No such user (talk) 10:09, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Changed requested to pigeon per suggestions. I had no idea until recently that pigeons and doves were the biologically the same, you learn something new everyday I guess..--Prisencolin (talk) 19:59, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Easy support if there's a split. Otherwise I strongly oppose Pigeon, because it makes zero sense to talk about the cultural meaning of a dove in an article called "pigeon". I can also imagine many people looking for that being extremely WP:ASTONISHed to see an article called "Pigeon". I mean ... sorry, they may be biologically the same animal, but doves are not pigeons. If it's white, it's a dove; if it's not then it's a pigeon. We cannot put dove-related stuff under an article called "Pigeon". I would support Doves and pigeons (alphabetical ordering) or Pigeons and doves, I would tolerate the status quo, I think that splitting is the best bet (biological info staying at Pigeon), and I absolutely cannot support this new proposal. There you go, the most words I ever wanted to write about pigeons and doves. Red Slash 05:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * "If it's white, it's a dove; if it's not then it's a pigeon." ?
 * Consider http://www.pigeonweb.net/white-pigeon
 * Feather colour is highly adaptable, within generations.
 * Pigeons and doves are so inter-related I don't think you can argue WP:ASTONISH. Anybody with knowledge of one will have knowledge of the other.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 20 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Ordinarily I'm all in favour of using common names for animals, but given the ambiguity between what is a dove and what is a pigeon, having the article here, at the unambiguous clade level seems most scientific and most accurate. I don't support a split, because scientifically they are the same thing (and therefore, making "Pigeon" the general article for the whole clade is not accurate either). Nothing is really broken here, and the proposed fix would make the situation worse. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 11:04, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, the current name dates from 2007, after a discussion at /Archive 1 which resulted in a move from Dove. Taking both discussions together, it comes down to personal preferences, more or less (in policy terms, the current name is WP:PRECISE while "Pidgeon" is more WP:RECOGNIZABLE and WP:COMMONNAME, and "Doves and Pigeons" is also precise, but not quite WP:CONCISE). I tend to agree that the current situation isn't broken. I would only slightly prefer just "pigeon", but having seen that Red Slash feels strongly about the issue (not that I share his concern), I'm inclined to leave it as it is. So broadly, consider me neutral. No such user (talk) 13:17, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Support. "Pigeon" isn't a perfect title, for the reasons stated above, but it's far more recognizable and natural for the average reader than "Columbidae". Even readers searching for "Dove" are more likely to recognize the term "pigeon" than "Columbidae". For what it's worth, Britannica has its main article at pigeon. I'm not sure that we benefit from having a separate article on "dove" (although Britannica does this), but either way the title ought to be something readers will recognize.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:51, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Support per Cúchullain. The distinction between pigeons and doves is some combination of "artificial" and "false"; unknowledgeable readers need first to be introduced to the combination, knowledgeable readers understand the two are intertwined.  Confusingly ("The peaceful dove (Geopelia placida) is a pigeon ...") sometimes, even the ceremonial white dove is a pigeon.  A myriad of more specific articles exist (eg Homing pigeon, Feral pigeon, Domestic pigeon) for more specific needs.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:32, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Amakuru. The title needs to give the scope of what the article is about, and titling the article either "pigeon" or "dove" does not do that since the article covers both. I understand they are scientifically the same, but culturally they are not, so renaming the article would result in more confusion than the status quo. -- Tavix ( talk ) 06:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Amakuru and Tavix. Both "Pigeon" and "Dove" lie under same family but their breed is different, so moving it to pigeon will make no sense. 39.54.110.91 (talk) 05:48, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose - unfortunately, there's no sharp distinction between pigeons and doves - indeed, the London Pigeon actually is the same species as the Rock Dove, so basically it's hopeless, it can't be done, and a split would be worse than useless (a fork). Even editors above who support the proposal agree the terms are (hopelessly) intertwined. Further, neither "Pigeon" nor "Dove" covers all the Columbidae, so the article is currently correctly titled, and renaming it would simply create confusion. We could rename to "Pigeons and doves", but that would be nonstandard in form. Columbidae is the best title here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:29, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above - Moving this to Pigeon would only cause so much confusion not to mention the fact it won't make the blindest bit of sense...., Keep it as it is. – Davey 2010 Talk 18:39, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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John H. Boyd III
This article cites John H. Boyd III's website which is a self-published tertiary source. Although it is an interesting site that discusses recent phylogenetic publications it is not a suitable source for the phylogeny of birds in wikipedia articles. Boyd lists some of his sources and these should be consulted and cited. I note also that Boyd likes to speculate and go beyond the published data as he explains:

"My approach contrasts with most checklist committees. They usually put substantial weight on traditional classifications, and try to avoid speculation, even when its clear that the traditional classification is wrong. In particular, they try to avoid making erroneous changes, and put a premium on stability."

"This checklist has a different purpose. It exists to speculate, to map out potential changes in the taxonomy. The price of focusing on speculation is to give up stability." and "The instability of the TiF worldlist may make it unsuitable for everyday use, although it should serve the useful function of highlighting potential changes regardless of your preferred checklist."

So in addition to the website being a self-published source, the approach is not suitable for wikipedia articles where we avoid speculation and value consensus and stability. -Aa77zz (talk) 10:02, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree. To quote WP:SPS: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." From what I can tell Boyd's professional expertise lie in economics, not taxonomy (or any other related field) so his self-published work should not be considered reliable regardless of his aims.  Alphathon  /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ ( talk ) 12:35, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
 * As replacement for the cladogram per Boyd, there's Soares et al. 2016, which contains an apparently full cladogram for Columbidae. The one drawback I can see is that none of the branches of that cladogram have anything more than provisional names. Given the current state of the Raphinae article, that may not be a bad thing, though. Esoteric bearcat (talk) 02:43, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

What insanity is this? Bring Pigeon back into the title ASAP
There is no sane explanation as to how this gobbledygook became all by itself the very singular standalone title of this page. Change it back ASAP.

It is only an indication of how pervasive the extremist geeky editing has become on Wikipedia that is not just out of touch with reality but tramples on Wiki-editing rules and regulations in both letter and spirit.

This gibberish fails to meet even one of the 5 criteria:
 * -Recognizability
 * -Naturalness
 * -Precision
 * -Conciseness and
 * -Consistency.

It is neither of ANY of these things -- not even precision (which no doubt was the supposed intent). It is not a precise title because all throughout the article from top to bottom the word used is pigeon and dove. --Loginnigol 17:37, 9 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Did you read the closed discussion above, at Talk:Columbidae? – Corinne (talk) 17:42, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

confusion
the word pigeon is different for pidgin. they are totally different allophones. can they put a disclaimer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.89.103.161 (talk) 19:25, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Animation of pigeons flying
What about adding this animation to Columbidae? --Leyo 15:09, 4 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I put it in Columbidae, since there's no corresponding text in Columbidae... --Nemoschool (talk) 00:55, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. --Leyo 22:39, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Good article status
I suspect this article's Good Article status needs reviewing. Whole sections are missing (where is breeding?) the standard of citations is pretty poor, there are citation tags in the text, the lead has info not in the article (and cited, a relic from before the article's expansion) and at the beginning of behaviour there is this solitary and incomprehensible statement "Male pigeons are more opportunistic to mate with another female." This needs a lot more work before its close to GA standard. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  19:11, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Description Section
It looks like the Description section of the page could be clarified by creating separate subsections, including one on anatomy. The anatomy subsection would specifically include skeletal and muscular structures unique to Columbidae flight ability. We would also like to add a subsection about the flight feathers and agility. It would also link to the Bird anatomy page. Are there and other thoughts on this addition? RameyEA (talk) 02:16, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 September 2019
The sentence in the lead "The species most commonly referred to as "pigeon" is the species known by scientists as the rock dove, one subspecies of which, the domestic pigeon, is common in many cities as the feral pigeon."

Should be changed to something like:

"The term "pigeon" used alone often refers to the domestic pigeon, which is common in many cities as the feral pigeon."

Scientists would largely know the species as Columba livia, and Rock Dove and Rock Pigeon are both in common use. And regardless, the current phrasing is redundant. Somatochlora (talk) 15:26, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done NiciVampireHeart 01:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 December 2019
Doves and Pigeons have long necks, not short necks. It says in the description, "These are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres." I want the part that says "short necks" to be replaced with "long necks". This is because in comparison to many other songbird species, such as black capped chickadees, american goldfinches, northern cardinals and blue jays, doves and pigeons have a long neck, especially when raised high in alertness. Their neck only appears short when tucked into their body when resting or relaxed. In proportion to their body, their neck is fairly long. 166.48.100.82 (talk) 23:46, 23 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. This is fairly technical stuff, not an obvious error or typo. --Nemoschool (talk) 00:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Taxonomy
The current taxonomy is from the personal website an economics professor and as such cannot be considered a reliable source, further some of the taxonomic names used like "Raphini" appear to be original inventions by the author. The use of Raphinae as a major subfamily is inconsistent with that of used by the wikipedia article, which consists only of two genera (and is now considered a good article). The change was initially made by on the 10th of December 2016, this has been brought up before, as well as in the 2017 article review and the issue wasn't resolved in either of the discussions. I don't know if any large scale phylogenies of columbidae have been done recently, but such sources should preferentially be used. Pinging users from the last discussion:   and relevant users, ,  and  Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:46, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see this paper from 2016 (open access) appears to represent the most recent macro-scale phylogeny of Columbidae, and therefore should be used in preference over a self published source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:44, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Mary and Joseph offerring turtledoves
Hey friends, the page mixes up to events in the Gospel of Luke. The doves were not offered at the circumcision of Jesus but at his Presentation on the fortieth day. Luke 2:22-24 Anchisides (talk) 11:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
 * My notable interest is limited to suggesting that a colleague — more committed to the topic than either I, or the doubtlessly overburdened Anchises — act on the preceding request, and (overwhelmingly more importantly) note (below, within this talk heading) having done so. This will facilitate freeing up for other tasks, the editors with free time on their hands, who might otherwise spend time at least considering a worthwhile improvement on this article (which has value sufficient for being neither neglected nor trashed).—User:JerzyA (at least for a while, stranded in ip-land) 2601:199:C201:FD70:99BA:370C:B613:98A2 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:33, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Not "turtledoves," which are a New World species = Mourning doves. David notMD (talk) 18:32, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Hearing
Pigeons can hear infrasound. With the average pigeon being able to hear sounds as low as 0.5 Hz, they can detect distant storms, earthquakes and even volcanoes. This also help them to navigate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.203.79 (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 September 2021
Cher Ami is described here as "she" while other articles about the pigeon indicate that Cher Ami is a cock and therefore a "he". Suggest either using "he" or neuter reference such as "the pigeon" as in other articles. 69.40.118.248 (talk) 19:31, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:37, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 October 2021
section: feeding Descendants of the domestic rock doves (Columbia Livia) reside in urban environments, disturbing their natural feeding habits. Urban living pigeons depend on human activities and interactions to obtain food, causing them to food on crumbs, spilled food, and out of trash cans.

Ksanch40 (talk) 17:37, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ with edits based on source provided. Thanks, Heartmusic678 (talk) 11:46, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Merging article "Doves"
It is precisely the same as this article, but more poorly written. TTTime05 (talk) 13:00, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Featured picture scheduled for POTD
Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Red-eyed dove (Streptopelia semitorquata).jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for December 5, 2023. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2023-12-05. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 21:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Passenger Pigeon
The statement that the Passenger Pigeon is the only non-island species to go extinct is incorrect. Should it be the only species of the family not an island species to go extinct? Dzbech (talk) 02:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)