Bolle's Pigeon
Columba bollii · Pigeons & doves
Bolle's Pigeon
Tenerife, 13 April 2026
A Bolle's Pigeon in the laurel forest of Tenerife, one of two pigeons found nowhere on Earth but the Canary Islands' laurel forests. Both are relicts of a forest type that once ringed the Mediterranean and now survives only on these islands' cloud-wrapped northern slopes, and both depend on the laurel fruit for food.
This is Bolle's: slate-grey all over, with a green-and-purple sheen on the neck, a pink flush across the breast, and a tail that darkens to the tip. The Laurel Pigeon is a browner, more wine-coloured bird with a broad pale band at the end of the tail that would be obvious from this angle if it were there. Both were pushed close to the edge by the clearance of laurel forest for farmland.
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