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| Thick-billed Green Pigeon Treron curvirostra curvirostra
- Courtship |
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| Photographer : | © Amar-Singh HSS |
| Location : | broken primary forest with secondary growth, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia |
| Date : |
1 March 2021 |
| English synonyms: | Thick-billed Green-Pigeon, Thick-billed Pigeon, Barusan Green Pigeon (hypothapsinus), Barusan Green-Pigeon (hypothapsinus) |
| Bird Family : | Columbidae - Pigeons & Doves |
| Bird Group : | COLUMBIFORMES |
| Red Data Status : | Least Concern |
| Remarks : | I was privileged to observe the courtship behaviour of a pair of Thick-billed Green-Pigeon. It was early morning after some rain, still overcast with some yellow light coming through altering image colours. The adult male started off by making their usual whistling, melodious, rambling call. The adult female at this point was on another branch. The male then started the courtship with lots of tail wagging and soft calls/sounds. I attempted a sound recording but the calls were very soft and hard to process with background interference; they sounded like two syllable ‘wo-wo’, repeated a few times. The male then flew over to where the female was and approached her with bowing movements (Post 1). The male then proceeded to do a curious titubation or head bobbing. This went on for a short while and then the female joined in. I suspect this was the acceptance stage when the female also bobbed her head together with the male. There is data that nodding is part of the courtship display in pigeons. In between the male chased off another male that was nearby.
I planned to do better recordings but the pair flew away immediately as their courtship was interrupted by a Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus) attack that fortunately failed. - Amar |
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