Monday, May 31, 2010

A white-crowned pigeon visits

Actually, they're quite common in my neck of the woods, but they are considered "near threatened" throughout its range, which consists of the Caribbean islands and parts of coastal Central America. For once, habitat loss isn't the problem; it's hunting. At least they're protected now in the U.S. where  they're only found in Florida south of Lake Okeechobee and through the Keys.

This one's a juvenile; an adult is easily recognized by its bright white pate. If you click on the top image, the enlarged photo will show you where its white crown is starting to appear.

It hadn't quite got flying down, and was having a hard time landing on the bird bath. A smaller blue jay arrived, but the pigeon successfully shooed him off.

3 comments:

Floridagirl said...

Beautiful pigeon! You're lucky to be visited often by a rare creature. I've never seen that one, I guess since I live north of Okeechobee.

NanaK said...

Never have seen that one before. Lucky you! I have been getting white-winged doves lately at my bird feeder. I've only seen the mourning doves under the feeder in the past. It's fun to get new wildlife in our gardens isn't it?

Terra Mirabilis said...

@FG: I am, indeed, lucky!

@Nana: I've never seen a white-winged dove. I get plenty of mourning doves, but the real pests are the Eurasian collared doves, which empty my feeders, mostly by dumping seed on the ground.