Conserving North America’s largest pigeon species through monitoring and management
In a hard-to-reach corner of Pacific County, along a tranquil river slough devoid of people, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) biologists watched as hundreds of band-tailed pigeons took to the early morning sky.
This peaceful moment at the edge of a marshy forest was the culmination of a project to track the birds’ movements and find mineral sites where they congregate along the West Coast. Project goals are to more accurately survey the statewide population, better manage harvest seasons, and inform habitat management.
As part of a Pacific Flyway Council effort, multiple agencies survey known mineral sites in mid-July along the coast, from British Columbia to California. These surveys have yielded anywhere from a few dozen band-tailed pigeons to over 500 at each site, noted Anthony Novack, WDFW’s district wildlife biologist who covers Pacific and Grays Harbor counties.
“It’s as if they have a secret club meeting at the mineral sites,” Novack said. “Their own old-timey speakeasy, where they occasionally visit to quaff some salty tonic water, socialize, and then head back to the family nest. Finding a new mineral site was like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow — and not only that, but also, a tiny family of leprechauns!”
Band-tailed pigeons are North America’s largest pigeon species at about 15 inches long. They have purple and gray-green feathers, a white neck band, and a gray tail band for which they are named. Their feet and bills are yellow, with a dark tip on the bill. Their wings may emit a distinct clapping sound during takeoff.
These birds establish nests below 2,000 feet elevation, primarily west of the Cascades. While they frequently visit residential areas and bird feeders, they are not typically found in urban environments because of the foods they seek. Natural food sources include cascara, elderberry, madrone, wild cherry, and huckleberry.
Biologists aren’t exactly sure why band-tailed pigeons visit mineral sites, but it’s likely to get the sodium and calcium that their berry-rich diets lack. One theory is that these minerals help the birds produce crop milk, a secretion made from the food they eat that they then pass to their young. One other possible reason they may need extra salt is that, unlike most other birds, pigeons don’t have gallbladders. Gallbladders produce bile salts that help break down food.
Thanks to the marked pigeons, WDFW has found new mineral sites throughout its Coastal Region, including areas around the Chehalis Basin, Lake Quinault, Clallam Bay, Willapa Bay, Grays Harbor, and the Kitsap Peninsula. This year, surveys expanded to north Puget Sound.
“Washington’s pigeons are unique in that some of them go toward estuarine, intertidal mudflat sites, and others go toward inland springs or drying creek beds,” said Kyle Spragens, WDFW’s waterfowl section manager. “If we know there’s a bunch of pigeons in an area and there’s no known mineral site within 20 miles, that’s somewhere we want to research.”
Contact WDFW if you know of a mineral site frequented by band-tailed pigeons.
Tracking birds’ movements offers new insight
Though WDFW has surveyed mineral sites for many years, the Department added a new component to the project in 2021. Biologists capture band-tailed pigeons from May until early July and place transmitters on them that fit like a tiny backpack. As natural food sources become scarcer in late spring and early summer, catching pigeons visiting bird feeders is easier.
To date, WDFW has fitted 47 birds with transmitters programmed to track their locations throughout the day and periodically upload data via the cell tower network — in other words, the pigeons send the project team a text message of their whereabouts.
“One surprising thing is how far these birds will go to get to a mineral site,” said Novack, who leads these efforts. “We had some that went about 20 miles, way out of their way. They just went and came back. It was like a two- or three-hour trip: go out there, get the mineral, and that’s it.”
Novack said every bird the Department has tracked moved to California for the winter and returned to Washington sometime between March and May. Band-tailed pigeons often return to the same locations to breed in the summer but seem to adjust their wintering location based on food sources and weather conditions. For example, they’ve flown farther south when northern California has experienced wildfires or strong rainstorms. A single bird might spend one winter near Arcata, Calif., the next in San Luis Obispo, and another year in the foothills east of Chico.
Because band-tailed pigeons nest in remote forested areas, often on private land, access can be difficult. WDFW has worked with landowners to gain access to trap birds, survey mineral sites, and recover transmitters from birds that have died.
Transmitters have lasted up to three years.
“Multiple birds have provided three full years of data,” Spragens said. “We’re talking about 20,000 data points from a single individual. We had never come close to having that kind of insight on this bird. It’s finally allowing us to think about questions that would allow us to influence habitat in more meaningful way.”
Conservation through harvest and habitat management
WDFW biologists have found band-tailed pigeons have a peculiar habit when visiting mineral sites. They tend to fly into one tree, usually a conifer, and sit for awhile. They then move to a second tree, closer to the mineral site, before landing on the ground.
“While they are a forest bird, they’re using a lot more than the forest,” Spragens said. “So, if you’re trying to protect habitat for band-tailed pigeon, you need different components. You need trees for nesting, berry-producing forests as secondary habitat, and mineral sites nearby.”
WDFW has listed band-tailed pigeons as a priority species and species of greatest conservation need, not because of their population status, but because of these unique habitat requirements. In one recent coastal habitat restoration project, the Department opted to leave cascara trees for the pigeons rather than cutting them.
The band-tailed pigeon breeding season is April to September.
“We want to see how many birds are still here in September during the hunting season,” Novack said. “Are we harvesting resident or migrant birds? How does the season timing relate to fall migration timing?”
At one time, Washington’s daily bag limit for band-tailed pigeons was 10 birds, and statewide harvest neared 100,000. Concerns about overharvesting and habitat loss led the state to close its band-tailed pigeon hunting season from 1991 to 2001. The Pacific Coast band-tailed pigeon population is managed at a flyway level within the Pacific Flyway, as they are migratory game birds that require collaborative management from British Columbia to California.
Washington’s 2025 band-tailed pigeon hunting season is Sept. 15–23, with a daily bag limit of two. Hunting requires a small game license, migratory bird permit and authorization, and band-tailed pigeon harvest card. Funding for the mineral site surveys and tracking project comes from migratory bird permits and authorizations.
“Hunters who buy migratory bird permits and authorizations allow our Department to continue this important work, and we appreciate their contributions to band-tailed pigeon conservation and management,” Spragens said.
The number of band-tailed pigeon hunters is fairly consistent each year. Band-tailed pigeon hunting is not as strong of a tradition as it once was; it now requires greater effort and experience to harvest these broadly distributed and hard-to-access birds.
The population index indicates band-tailed pigeon numbers have fluctuated through the years. However, since WDFW began surveying mineral sites, they have stabilized or slightly increased, maintaining the current limited harvest opportunities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Pacific Flyway states evaluate population status annually.
The mineral site surveys and tracking project will improve understanding of band-tailed pigeon habitat at different times of the year, in different regions of the Pacific Flyway, and help identify management actions to improve habitat conditions for this unique migratory game bird.
“Band-tailed pigeons are the nearest living relatives to the now-extinct passenger pigeon,” Novack said. “In the late 1800s, people didn’t pay attention to long-term management and hunted them to extinction for their feathers and meat. A little more than a century ago, millions of passenger pigeons could be spotted in the air, and now, there are none. WDFW is doing what we can to make sure that doesn’t happen again, and we seem to be on the right path.”
