Pigeonspotting, a game to play at home.

A favorite game amongst birdwatchers when there is little else to do is "pigeonspotting" a simple game of who can find the rarest feral pigeon color morph in a given flock.

Of course, what the "rarest pigeon morph" is has been up for debate and often hangs in between pure white and pure ash red.

I should say- the rarest pigeon color morph was up for debate- but it has now been settled thanks to my spending way too long looking at pigeons...

Without further adieu, I present a modified version of "pigeonspotting" that can be used by anyone living in close proximity to urban columbiformes.

What you need: A sheet of paper, a pencil for keeping score and the charts below.

Rules: Each player gets a piece of paper and pencil and is stationed at different locations. This can be looking out different windows in a car, different buildings in a city or on different continents on a planet. For one day- each player records all of the pigeons morphs they encounter as well as their point values (refer to charts). at the end of the day, the player with the most points wins! the number of birds seen with each morph is unimportant. All birds counted must be un-banded.

example game: I see a black morph pigeon (3 points) and three light checker pigeons (2 points). I have five points. My friend sees two pied pigeons (3 points) and a barred pigeon (1 point). They have four points, I win.

charts:

Low point value "common" morphs:

 

uncommon morphs of higher point values:

 

Rare morphs of high point values

 

Ridiculously rare LET ME KNOW RIGHT NOW if you see one, morphs of ridiculously high point values. This is where I have put the rarest of wild pigeon colors- Indigo. There are only two records of wild pigeons displaying indigo. the other morphs are not known to exist in the wild, but are common in captivity and therefore a few wild individuals may exist.

 

Have fun pigeonspotting! and let me know what scores you get if you play!