Rock Dove

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Rock Dove. The birds that Woody Allen once described as "rats with wings" are for many the bane of urban life. Feral pigeons, as domesticated rock doves are known, live closely alongside us. But the same species has, over millennia, been cosseted by pigeon fanciers, used to deliver wartime messages and been housed in dovecotes.