It seems to me that almost every urban pidgeon I see is the exact colour as the sidewalk he’s walking on. Are rural pidgeons also coloured like asphalt, or did the urban kind evolved to blend in their new suroundings?
Urban pigeons (at least those we have in the UK) are descendants of Rock Pigeons - which, as the name suggests, live amongst rocks and on cliff faces. I suppose there#s probably an element of protective colouring in their ancestry, but I doubt it’s a significant selective pressure for the urban descendants of the rock pigeon; our cities are typically constructed from stone-coloured materials, that’s true, but urban pigeons don’t spend a lot of time hiding - they evade predators by flying away or flocking in large numbers.
BTW, some of the urban pigeons in cities I’ve been to are white, reddish-brown, black or a mixture of those colours, as well as grey.
Rural pigeons (here) would normally mean Wood Pigeons, which are a little more colourful and earth-toned, but not much.
Thanks for the info…