Band-tailed pigeon

Hello everyone, first post in PNWNP, thanks for the invite months ago, Catherine

We moved to Bellingham from Virginia about 5 years ago and as far as I know I've never seen a band-tailed pigeon before, but 4 have found our feeder this year and have been hanging around. Are they common? I'm very surprised I haven't noticed them before, although, as a novice birder I didn't even particularly know that there WERE pigeons other than the rock pigeons, so I may have seen them and not realized it.

D7000,sigma 150-500@500, f/8, 1/160, ISO 800, HH

Nice. I like the pose and the cedar branches.

Depends on where you are, Jeff. They're not supposed to be common, but we have a flock of 50-100 right now at our feeders (a few more than we really like!). Surprisingly, I rarely think about photographing them, though I have been thinking about trying to get some landing shots. I like this one.

Welcome to PNWNP Jeff! Its great to have you here, and I hope to see more from you.

I'm not a birder, and I don't know the difference between a banded pigeon and a plaid pigeon ( ) but I like your image of the banded pigeon. Good detail, good depth and bokah and good light. Nice shot!

Great shot Jeff, nice job with the shot, pose and comp. I like the included foilage sets him off nicely!

Welcome, Jeff! A great first post; a fine shot of the pigeon that shows the important field markings in a nice pose in the cedar boughs. Now you've gotten off to a wonderful start, please don't be a stranger around here!

Thanks everyone for the welcome and the nice comments. The pigeons are pretty skittery, they must taste good or something It took me awhile to get a clear shot of one, and this is a "near the feeder" shot, so not quite in the wild.

And wow Dennis, I was thinking the 4 that found us were making a mess out of our feeder setup, can't imagine 100 jockeying for food and scattering everything else.

Fantastic first post Jeff; keep 'em coming! I don't see photos of this species very often, and that is a winner.