Former good articleRock dove was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 16, 2008Good article nomineeNot listed
February 23, 2008Good article nomineeListed
November 28, 2011Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article


GA Reassessment edit

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Rock Pigeon/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.
Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
  1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. There are a variety of short sentences and paragraphs in this article, these are discouraged in the GA criteria.
  1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. Words to watch: Important (peacock term) Various (too vague) Many (too vague) Several (too vague), very (too vague), almost (too vague)
2. Verifiable with no original research:
  2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. Ref 22 needs verification to establish notability and all references need to be directly after punctuation (ref 22).
  2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). Here is the problem. There are some statements which are not sourced, which isn't ideal for a GA.

They often host the intestinal helminths Capillaria columbae and Ascaridia columbae. Their ectoparasites include the Ischnoceran lice Columbicola columbae, Campanulotes bidentatus compar, the Amblyceran lice Bonomiella columbae, Hohorstiella lata, Colpocephalum turbinatum, the mites Tinaminyssus melloi, Dermanyssus gallinae, Dermoglyphus columbae, Falculifer rostratus, and Diplaegidia columbae. The hippoboscid fly Pseudolynchia canariensis is a typical blood-sucking ectoparasite of pigeons, found only in tropical and sub-tropical regions. There is no inline citation for this.

The Rock Dove was first described by Gmelin in 1789. This is unsourced.

Ref 4 (Gibbs, David; Eustace Barnes, John Cox....) leads to a dead link, this needs to be fixed.



  2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
  3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
  3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
  6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
  6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. There is an image with no caption, and text should not be sandwiched between two adjacent images. This happens twice in the article. The gallery needs an introduction. Only captions with full sentences need full stops. Captions need a capital letter to start.
  7. Overall assessment. Delisted

Move request edit

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved for WP:COMMONNAME as indicated by links in nom and Mike Cline's !vote. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:48, 28 May 2012 (UTC)Reply


Rock PigeonRock Dove – "Rock Pigeon" was really just the IOC World Bird List name, while "Rock Dove" is the customary name, most common species name, and now the IOC name. (Most people probably know the feral birds as "pigeons", but this refers to many species; "Rock Pigeon" was removed from the IOC List since it also refers to some Australian birds.) --Relisted JHunterJ (talk) 11:46, 17 May 2012 (UTC)innotata 20:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose WP:UCN would be "pigeon", so this should move to pigeon, and a hatnote implemented for the more expansive but rarer usage. 65.92.180.19 (talk) 03:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
    • There are a lot of other pigeons, so this is pretty obviously not what the common name policy calls for. I'd say the main definitions of "pigeon" are not Columba livia as a whole, but feral and domestic representatives of the species and the whole family. —innotata 14:54, 10 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Support per innotata. Lost on Belmont (talk) 00:40, 11 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Support, per Innotata, as proposed and replied. ENeville (talk) 21:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. This bird is almost always called a pigeon. A large tract of Origin of Species, still one of the most widely read books, discusses this bird and consistently refers to it as the rock pigeon. Australian readers (I am one) will be quite adequately served by a hatnote to a rock pigeon (disambiguation) page if there is any room for confusion... but note that the most populous parts of Australia have been colonised by this bird too. It is so common hereabouts as to be nicknamed the winged rat by some unkind persons. Andrewa (talk) 07:58, 17 May 2012 (UTC)Reply
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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Unusual colours edit

 
A red pigeon (amongst a flock of normal coloured Columba livia's in Australia)

Could someone with the expertise or sources add a paragraph about rare colourings? Thanks. --99of9 (talk) 06:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Physiology edit

@Bpuneet: @BreckenTulloch: @MacFishy: @Arshiya.sheikh: @SStarman15: - are you all involved in any educational project to improve this article. If so please do see the comments at WT:BIRD - you are welcome to discuss this (as is perhaps your course instructor). Shyamal (talk) 05:10, 4 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Diet edit

I would have thought a section on the diet (preferred/natural and adapted) of these birds is at least as important as their parasites. Centrepull (talk) 14:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

No feeding section edit

I came to this page to learn what Pigeons normally eat and was quite surprised to find nothing on it's diet or feeding behavior. This is normally included in wikipedia pages on animals so shouldn't it be here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.188.73 (talk) 04:07, 29 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Osmoregulation edit

The whole Osmoregulation section does not fit in with the rest of the article. It is not clear how much is specific to this species, and how much to other birds or even other animals. The non-specific parts should be refactored to other articles, whether osmoregulation or kidney or the relevant clade (Columbiformes, chordata, or whatever). Also, much of it appears to have been written by a non-native speaker, making it even harder to understand. jnestorius(talk) 11:11, 9 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

I agree, also the part at the end of the article contradicts itself. On the one hand it says that the kidney cannot produce hyperosmotic urine. Then in the next sentence it talks about countercurrent exchange and the production of hyperosmotic urine. Something about it can't be right. I'm in medical school, so I know a bit about osmoregulation and renal systems. However I'm not too up on rock dove physiology, so I don't feel that I could write the correct article. Kingfishersfire (talk) 01:32, 29 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I did copyedit on the section, but am at a loss on what should be done with it. It seems way-too-specific to be moved to osmoregulation or Columbiformes, and I'm not a good judge of the content to make substantial cuts. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:07, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps we can move it to the Columbiformes page while mentioning that the study uses domestic pigeons. Afterall, they're used as model organisms, and modelling them for other columbids is less egregious than doing so for, say, humans. Anthropophoca (talk) 12:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Mentioning Ferals edit

We shouldn't mention feral pigeons in this page. They've already gotten their own page, and i'm thinking to either move the sections talking about ferals to the feral pigeon page, or merge that page with this one or the domestic pigeon page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthropophoca (talkcontribs) 12:19, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Producers and Scroungers not being real. edit

Before creating this account and editing this page, i have talked to a pigeon breeder who breeds birds for pets, Danielle Ramsey. She observes her flock on a daily basis, observing their behavior and temperament. When presented with the section in concern, she said this: https://theramseyloft.tumblr.com/search/scroungers Now pigeons live in flocks, where both parents raise one or two squabs to weaning. The male educates his children in being an adult pigeon, one of them being the location of food and water. Pigeon flocks also employ navigators to find their way home after foraging: https://www.audubon.org/news/in-homing-pigeon-flocks-bad-bosses-quickly-get-demoted Perhaps we could mention that their navigating abilities is an adaptation to return after foraging.Anthropophoca (talk) 04:19, 19 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Clear separation between wild Rock Doves and Feral Pigeons edit

The article frequently mentions and depicts birds living in Western cities with atypical markings, which are feral pigeons sourced from escaped/released domestic birds. This falls outside the article's WP:Scope as this is an article discussing the wild-type bird inhabiting the Middle East and South Asia. This seems to be a persistent problem as misconceptions on the nature of and generic term "pigeons" is endemic in the english language. Anthropophoca (talk) 07:42, 2 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I disagree on the article's scope. It's scope is about the species, full stop. Some populations of the species are naturally wild, while others have regained their wildness (feral) after being released or escaping captivity. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:15, 2 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
The feral pigeons wouldn't be so prevalent in the article if we adopted a similar standard to other wiki pages about feral animals; razorback, brumby, mongrel, strays. These animals get their own pages, even when they possess living ancestral species. There is already a page about domestic pigeons, so my proposal would just be to move all the information about ferals there. All links to this page would be to that page as the ferals aren't truly wild, having fancy pigeon blood in them originating from dismantled lofts. Anthropophoca (talk) 23:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
Agree the bulk of this page should be about wild Rock Doves, not feral or domesticated birds, as they each have their own pages. I've made a start by changing the taxobox pic to wild birds. Feral and domesticated birds should just have brief paragaphs with 'see main article' links to their pages, and most of the pics of non-wild birds moved to those pages. - MPF (talk) 17:08, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply