Pigeons vs Doves: What Is the Difference?

Pigeon or dove? This page explains why there is no real difference, where the two words come from, why a white "dove" in town is a pigeon, and how to tell apart the pigeons and doves you are most likely to see in Britain and North America. The town pigeon has its own page: feral pigeon (Rock Dove).

Yes, as far as science is concerned. There is no scientific distinction between pigeons and doves: they are all members of one family, the Columbidae.¹ The world checklist AviList lists 350 species in the family. In their English names, 186 are called doves and 152 pigeons, and the other 12 are neither, among them the bleeding-hearts, the bronzewings and the Dodo.²

As a rule of thumb, the smaller, more delicate species tend to be called doves and the bigger, stouter ones pigeons,¹ but the rule often fails. The feral pigeon's own species is the Rock Dove.

"Dove" is the older English word. It goes back to Middle English, and probably to Old English, from a Germanic root of uncertain origin; its first known use dates to the 13th century.³ "Pigeon" arrived with French, from the Anglo-French pijun, from the Late Latin pipio, a young bird, and the Latin pipire, to chirp; its first known use is in the 14th century.⁴ A "squab" is a young pigeon: Merriam-Webster defines it as a fledgling pigeon about four weeks old.⁵ More: baby pigeons.

The feral pigeon shows how loose the names are. AviList and BirdLife call Columba livia the Rock Dove, while the Clements checklist used by eBird calls it the Rock Pigeon.² The RSPB lists it as Rock Dove/Feral Pigeon: the town pigeon and the wild bird of sea cliffs are the same species.⁶ And the Stock Dove is a "dove" as big as the feral pigeon, 32-34 cm long against 31-34 cm.⁷

Seen an all-white dove in town? It is a feral pigeon.¹ Feral pigeons come in many colours, from the wild-type blue-grey to chequered, black, red and pure white; all are the same species, descended from domestic pigeons bred for thousands of years.^{8, 1}

"Dove" has picked up other meanings along the way: in politics a dove is someone who argues for negotiation rather than war, the opposite of a hawk.³

The Dodo of Mauritius belongs to the pigeon family too, as does the Rodrigues Solitaire. Both are extinct, and so is the Passenger Pigeon of North America: AviList marks 13 species of the family as extinct, 2 more as possibly extinct and 1 as extinct in the wild.²

The UK has five regular pigeons and doves: the feral pigeon and Rock Dove, the Woodpigeon, the Stock Dove, the Collared Dove and the Turtle Dove, now much rarer after severe declines.¹ Size, the neck and the wings tell them apart.

Sizes and marks come from each bird's species account: the Woodpigeon, the feral pigeon, the Collared Dove and the Turtle Dove,^{9, 10, 11} and the Stock Dove.^{7, 12} Stock Doves are easily mistaken for feral pigeons.¹

In North America the feral pigeon is called the Rock Pigeon.¹³ Beside it you may see the Mourning Dove: smaller, at 23-33 cm (9-13 in), mostly plain, with black spots on its wings and a long, pointed tail that shows white spots along its edge in flight.¹⁴ The Eurasian Collared-Dove has joined them: introduced accidentally into the Bahamas in 1974, it reached Florida soon after and has spread west and north since the 1980s.¹⁵ Out west, the Band-tailed Pigeon shows a narrow white band across the nape, a yellow base to the bill and a wide grey band on the tail.¹⁶ More: Eurasian Collared-Dove vs Mourning Dove.

Whatever they are called, pigeons and doves share some unusual habits. Pigeon and dove parents feed their newly hatched young on crop milk, a rich secretion from the lining of the crop made under the hormone prolactin.¹⁷ And they coo with their bills shut, pushing air into the gullet so that the throat swells.¹⁸ More: pigeon sounds and do pigeons mate for life?

Is a dove a pigeon?

Yes. Every dove is a member of the pigeon family, the Columbidae, and so is every pigeon; the names are custom, not science (see above).

Are Mourning Doves pigeons?

Yes: the Mourning Dove is in the same family as the feral pigeon, smaller and slimmer with a long, pointed tail. More: Mourning Dove.

What is a baby pigeon called?

A squab, or simply a chick. Baby pigeons are rarely seen because they stay in the nest, out of sight on a ledge, until they are almost full grown. More: baby pigeons.

1. RSPB (2025). Doves vs Pigeons. What's the difference? RSPB, Identifying birds. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
2. AviList Core Team (2025). AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025b. doi:10.2173/avilist.v2025b
3. Merriam-Webster. Dove. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
4. Merriam-Webster. Pigeon. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
5. Merriam-Webster. Squab. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
6. RSPB. Rock Dove/Feral Pigeon. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
7. Baptista, L. F., Trail, P. W., Horblit, H. M., Boesman, P. F. D., Garcia, E. (2020). Stock Dove (Columba oenas), version 1.0. Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie and E. de Juana, editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.stodov1.01
8. Lowther, P. E., Johnston, R. F. (2020). Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), version 1.0. Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.rocpig.01
9. RSPB. Woodpigeon. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
10. RSPB. Collared Dove. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 9 October 2026. Source
11. RSPB. Turtle Dove. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 9 October 2026. Source
12. BTO. Stock Dove (Columba oenas). BTO BirdFacts. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
13. National Audubon Society. Rock Pigeon. Audubon Guide to North American Birds (text adapted from Kaufman, Lives of North American Birds, 1996). Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
14. National Audubon Society. Mourning Dove. Audubon Guide to North American Birds. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
15. National Audubon Society. Eurasian Collared-Dove. Guide to North American Birds (text adapted from Kaufman 1996). Accessed 9 October 2026. Source
16. National Audubon Society. Band-tailed Pigeon. Audubon Guide to North American Birds. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
17. Horseman, N. D., Buntin, J. D. (1995). Regulation of pigeon cropmilk secretion and parental behaviors by prolactin. Annual Review of Nutrition 15: 213-238. doi:10.1146/annurev.nu.15.070195.001241
18. Riede, T., Eliason, C. M., Miller, E. H., Goller, F., Clarke, J. A. (2016). Coos, booms, and hoots: the evolution of closed-mouth vocal behavior in birds. Evolution 70(8): 1734-1746. doi:10.1111/evo.12988