Unlimited edition. 18 x 24 inch, museum-quality poster on matte paper.

Before moving to Sonoma County, California, I’d never seen a band-tailed pigeon. The large dove species is hard to miss, though. Longer than the rock dove (or rock pigeon), mourning dove, and the introduced Eurasian collared-dove, the band-tailed pigeon is also heavy-bodied; it weighs three times as much as a mourning dove. It’s louder, too, but not necessarily in the way you’d expect. When a band-tailed pigeon takes off, its wingtips “clap” together. Because this is a social bird, its flocks are often large, and the sound of 20-plus pigeons flushing from an oak tree can be startling. The species scientific binomial references this sound. Patagioenas fasciata translates as “banded clattering pigeon.” Ornithologists suggest the “clatter” is both an offense and defense; it scares potential predators and sounds the alarm for other members of the flock.

Here in Sonoma County, I usually see band-tailed pigeons in oak woodlands and mixed oak-conifer forests, where they forage for acorns and wild fruits, including toyon and madrone berries. They’re adaptable enough, though, and I also spot them in or near suburbia, where they take advantage of all the planted fruit trees, and sometimes around farms, where they enjoy eating grains.

Because it’s the closest living relative of the extinct passenger pigeon, the species is also the subject of some popular media attention. Some conservation-minded futurists floated the idea of “recreating” the passenger pigeon by modifying the band-tailed pigeon’s genome. To that proposal, I say, ppfffffttttt. When it comes to conservation, let’s prioritize being better stewards of the habitat and species we have here now instead of Frankensteining our way toward some imagined long ago.

I’ve included a detail of the color column’s base so you can appreciate some of the smaller color bands (representing the smallest percentages present).

Note: These archival poster prints feature rich, appealing colors. I encourage customers to take care in handling them until they are framed/protected for display; the darker colors on the matte paper can be scratched. They ship rolled, so customers need to flatten them before framing (or have their framer do so).

Charitable Sales Model: Whenever one of these poster prints is purchased, a charitable contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost (or $3.60) is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges. Read more about my charitable sales model here.