Homing Pigeon & Descending Hawk

A Homing Pigeon is a two-candle pattern that forms during a decline. A tall red candle is followed by a smaller red candle whose body sits inside the first one's body. The body is the thick part of a candle, between its open and its close.

It is a Harami with one difference: both candles are red. The first is often called the mother; the small one inside it is the pigeon.

The mirror, a Descending Hawk, forms during a rally: a tall green candle followed by a smaller green candle inside its body. This guide teaches the Homing Pigeon first and the Descending Hawk as its mirror.

Two sessions make the pattern. A third, sometimes days later, decides what it meant.

The skill this pattern teaches is reading a candle's color and its close as two different facts.

Color compares a session with itself. A candle is red when it closes below its own open. It says sellers won that session, from the opening price to the closing price.

The close compares today with yesterday. Whether the stock is up or down on the day is measured from the previous close, not from today's open. A red candle can be an up day, and a green candle can be a down day.

In a Homing Pigeon, the pigeon's body sits inside the mother's body, and the bottom of the mother's body is her close. So the pigeon has to close above the mother's close. It is red, and it is still a higher close.

What that says about the sellers. The pigeon opened above yesterday's close. Sellers then pushed price down during the session, but they could not get it back to yesterday's close, and the day's range is usually much narrower than the mother's. Selling continued, with less force.

What it does not say. Buyers have not taken control. Sellers still won both sessions. Shrinking selling is the kind of thing that comes before a turn, but a decline can also slow for a day and carry on. That is why the pattern needs a decision, covered next.

It is usually listed as a bullish reversal: a sign a decline may be ending. The two candles alone do not settle that.

So treat it as a question, not an answer. The pigeon says selling lost force. The first close outside the mother's range says which side won: a close above her high confirms the turn; a close below her low says the decline is back.

Two other two-candle patterns start with a tall red candle after a decline. They differ in the second candle.

Red pigeon versus green harami. In a Bullish Harami the small candle closes above its own open, so buyers won that session. In a Homing Pigeon sellers won it, by less. Both show the decline losing force; the green one shows a little more of it. Either way, the later close does the deciding.

Higher close versus equal close. A Matching Low is also two red candles, but the second closes at the same price as the first. It reads as a stall at a level: two sessions that ended at one price. A Homing Pigeon's second close is higher, so selling fell short of the prior close.

When the pigeon makes a new low. If the pigeon's long lower shadow reaches below the mother's low, and the next session is a small green candle that closes below the pigeon's close without trading back down to the pigeon's low, the three candles are a Unique Three-River Bottom.

The two are mirrors: every rule flips.

In a Descending Hawk, the second green candle opens below the first one's close, rallies during the session, and still closes below that close. It is green, and it is a lower close: buyers won the day, but moved price far less. The rally is losing force, not yet reversing.

The Hawk is far less studied than the Pigeon, and this guide quotes no test figures for it. Read it the same way: a warning that waits for a close outside the first candle's range. Some lists call it a bearish Homing Pigeon.

The pattern says selling lost force. Context says whether that happened somewhere it matters.

Moving averages. A Homing Pigeon that forms as price pulls back to a rising 50-day moving average can mark the end of a pullback in an uptrend. Under a falling one, the larger trend still points down, so a confirming close would be a turn against that trend, with no rising average underneath. Read the Candlesticks + Moving Averages guide →

Volume. Lighter volume on the pigeon than on the mother fits the story of selling that is drying up. Heavier volume on the close above the mother's high means many shares changed hands as buyers took the ground back. Read the Candlesticks + Volume guide →

Fibonacci levels. A pattern whose low sits on a common Fibonacci retracement (a level that marks how much of the last rally has been given back) formed at a price many traders had marked in advance. Read the Candlesticks + Fibonacci guide →

A Homing Pigeon is a decline that is still red but losing force. The second candle lost the session but closed higher than the day before, and that gap between color and close is the whole warning.

It is a warning, not a reversal. Mark the mother's high and low, let the next close outside them decide, and size the trade from a stop below her low (or the pigeon's, if its shadow reached lower).