Monday Band-Tailed Pigeon Blogging

Band-Tailed Pigeon - Marin County  2016

Right opposite our house. I could tell that it was pigeon-like, but it seemed awfully big. Barbara gave me the ID, of course. As of last year, their population was in decline in California:

The band-tailed pigeon is a common, medium-size, gray-feathered bird known for a white crescent on its neck and a long tail that sports a pale band at its tip. The bird is a relative of the passenger pigeon – a species once as common as the band-tailed pigeon, but now extinct.

- Sacramento Bee

Of course, they could have called it a "white-collared pigeon." But no, that would have been too easy.