A big garden bird

Hringdúfa – Wood pigeon – Columba palumbus

A Wood Pigeon can now be added to the list of birds in our garden. For about 10 days this bird has taken a great liking to our garden, and sometimes we have seen two of them. These two seem to be males and are not at all fond of each other’s company.  Our Wood Pigeon is getting to like us more every day and becoming tamer and more relaxed.

The Wood Pigeon is a vagrant in Iceland but its numbers have been increasing in recent years. Confirmation of successful breeding has been recorded a few times.

In many countries the Wood Pigeon is not so well liked. In agriculture they can cause damage to crops and in some places it is legal to shoot them. Wood Pigeons are common in parks and gardens in Europe and western Asia and their numbers are growing in  cities.