Orange pigeon flying around east Toronto is actually a dyed rock dove


In the swarm of the many grey birds flocking around Toronto, its bright orange colour immediately catches your eye. Is it a pigeon? Or a colourful bird-shaped drone?

No, it’s probably just a dyed rock dove, a bird expert says.

The vibrant, orange-coloured pigeon is piquing some East Toronto residents’ intrigue, while confusing others about its origins.In fact, it’s not even a naturally orange bird at all, said University of Toronto bird expert Jason Weir.

“It’s not a wild species that’s been released accidentally or released that’s naturally orange like that,” the professor of ornithology at U of T’s departments of ecology and evolution, and biological sciences, told the Star with a chuckle.

“These rock doves we have all over the city are typically grey, but they can be pure white. And what I think someone has done is taken a pure white one and dyed it this orange colour,” Weir said.

By who? We don’t know.

Why? An even better question.

While there are orange-coloured birds, like the orange fruit dove, Weir explained to the Star that they wouldn’t be spotted in Toronto. Unlike the flying highlighter causing confusion and speculation on Reddit and Twitter, orange fruit doves are a Fiji endemic and they live in trees. They don’t generally strut around on the ground.

“The males are much more brilliant orange and have a brownish/green head. And the feet of the Toronto dove are red, just like the rock doves they are strutting around with,” Weir added. “The orange fruit dove has greenish feet.”

Photos and videos have been circulating online since Jan. 25 where the bird can be seen among regular-looking pigeons, standing out like a furry Cheetos puff.

Toronto resident Saad Khan was dropping his wife off at Victoria Park subway station last weekend when they spotted the orange “phenomenon” among its more duller-coloured comrades.

“We were just talking about it in the car when, lo and behold, it was right in front of us. We couldn’t believe our eyes. It was so random, but there it was in all its glory hanging out with its friends,” Khan said.

Khan, who was enthusiastically telling his friends at a party last week about this strange sighting, was surprised to learn the celebrity pigeon is likely an impostor.

“This seems like a very unusual thing to do. I’m curious what motivated the person (who dyed it).”

But Weir said once the bird moults its limited edition feathers, they will grow back to their normal colour again.

While dyeing pigeons — and baby chicks, rabbits, dogs, you name it — isn’t something new, there is no way to quantify the safety risks to the animal without knowing the type of dye and how it was done.

“Doves will run their feathers through their bill during preening,” he said. “So, it’s possible this one could get some of the dye residues into its body, but I have no idea what dye was put on this bird.”

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