Pigeon & GBS

["Philip Veerman" <>]

Roger,

 

It is a "feral pigeon" (rock dove) 957 and it appears from the photos to have an overgrown cere. Even if it is a plainly an escaped cage bird it should be recorded on a GBS chart. Unless of course, it is functionally in someone's care, as in part of a domestic flock, in which case don't count it. In practise these can be hard to tell apart, other than that domestic flocks fly circles around their loft.

 

Your question seems to be suggesting that things that are "plainly escaped cage birds" should not be recorded on a GBS chart. I wonder why you should think that. See the second paragraph on page 47 of the book "Canberra Birds: A Report on the first 21 years of the Garden Bird Survey", that goes into this issue, in the section "Introduced species and escaped or released pet birds". It is important to include all such observations, as the ratio in which such occur, relative to the ratio at which they are kept, can tell us about their survivorship on release or escape and give hints as to whether such things have arrived by natural means or human assisted (in the case of native species). As usual, all issues are already covered in this publication.

 

Philip