A man’s claims to have seen a bright pink pigeon were laughed off by colleagues at a Kent builders merchant.

But the birdspotter’s disbelieving workmates at Travis Perkins in Ashford were left open-mouthed after he pulled out the proof.

The man captured pictures and video of the eye-catching pigeon perched on a roof in Newtown on Tuesday.

It is not known if the bird had been deliberately dyed – a practice growing in popularity as part of baby gender reveals.

Tha man’s colleague Peter Morris-Kelso says staff could not believe what they were seeing.

“He came in and said he had seen a pink pigeon, and we all thought he was going off on one of his little tricks,” he said.

“But then he showed us all the photos of this vibrantly pink pigeon that was just sitting on a roof in Newtown, and we all thought ‘oh, it was real’.

“I Googled it and apparently there is a native pink pigeon of sorts out in Mauritius, but they don’t come up this far, so I thought someone local to this house might have caught a pigeon and dyed it pink for whatever reason.

“It is just very very odd because that kind of pink is not seen around this neck of the woods, which obviously is why it stuck out to my colleague.

“I have never in my life seen a pink pigeon, so it was a bit of an event for us in the office.”

A pink pigeon was also spotted in Canterbury at the weekend, but it it not known if it was the same bird.

Melinda Jaro managed to capture some pictures of it in the city on Saturday.

There is a species of pink pigeon native to Mauritius – which is more than 6,000 miles from Kent.

It was on the brink of extinction in 1991 when only 10 remained, but its numbers have increased due to the efforts of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust since 1977.

Its population remained at below 500 as of 2011.