The nest is usually placed on a tree, but sometimes in bushes or hedgerows. It is made of twigs laid loosely on each other, and is such a flimsy structure that one would never imagine it capable of forming an efficient nursery for so large a bird. Two eggs only are laid, which, as with all Pigeons, are pure white. Two or three broods are often reared in the season, both sexes taking their turn at incubation and rearing the young.
Pigeons when first hatched are covered with coarse yellowish down and are very helpless; they are fed for the first ten days on a sort of soft curd known as Pigeon's milk, which is secreted in the crop, or is, as has been stated, the secretion of two glands placed on each side near the crop, but this latter point requires confirmation. They are fed by regurgitation, the young bird inserting its beak into that of the parent.
The note of the Wood Pigeon is a soft melodious "cooroo, coo, coo." When courting he expands his tail, blows out his crop, and holding his head high in the air utters his coo; he then bows, and raises his expanded tail. His hen, who usually shows but little enthusiasm over the display, has probably moved a little farther off, and the display ends with an awkward hop towards her.
The flight is rapid and sustained, but in the nesting season, and occasionally at other times, an upward soaring flight is indulged in over their nesting home. Its food consists chiefly of grain, seeds, beechmast, and acorns; but at certain seasons, especially when the snow is on the ground, large quantities of green food are eaten, tender turnip tops being much sought after.
The adult is a delicate bluish grey all over, having a violet green metallic patch on the sides of the neck, bounded on each side by a patch of white. The breast is a rich vinous purple. Tail and wing feathers nearly black. Bill yellow; legs red. The sexes are alike; and the young resemble their parents, but are duller in colour and lack the metallic and white patch on the sides of the neck. Length 17 in.; wing 10 in.
The Stock Dove is rather smaller and considerably less common than the previous species, but is nevertheless by no means uncommon in England, and has greatly increased of late years, especially in Scotland. In Ireland it is still a rare and local species. The name "Stock Dove" is not due, as many erroneously suppose, to its being the race from which our domestic Pigeons spring, but to its habit of nesting in the stocks and boles of old timber. Such places are, however, by no means exclusively used, for it also nests in caves, ledges of cliffs, and rabbit-burrows. Otherwise its habits are not materially different from those of the Wood Pigeon. As a rule it goes about in pairs, and large flocks are never met with, even when migrating from its more northerly breeding quarters.