The Topknot Pigeons have been visiting on and off for the last few weeks causing a small amount of chaos.
Each visit goes something like this: humans minding their own business, birds turn up silently and head straight for the palm and start plucking the fruits, fruits rain down from on high, catching the attention of the humans who, upon looking up and seeing who is decimating the palm, run screaming and crashing into each other to grab cameras. What can I say? We love these birds!
These pigeons can be found all along the east coast of Australia, but due to their tendency to be quite quiet and their nomadic nature, they follow fruiting trees in rainforest and other moist environments, they’re not noticed as regularly as some other birds who like to make their presence known. We’ve found them to be quite skittish too, which is only partly due to the noisy way that we approach them in our excitement but that makes the time that you do get to observe them – and if we’re super lucky, to grab some images – even more special.
Both the males and the females have the crest (look, it’s a quiff and no-one can change my mind on that!) but, as with many species, the crest of the male is more elaborate than that of the girls. All the better to find a mate with! They tend to swallow the fruits that they’re feasting on whole, which makes them a fantastic help in the spread of rainforest fruit species.
However, as rainforests disappear, these birds have adapted and also feed on camphor laurels, which are considered to be a pest plant. Unfortunately, that means that they also aid in the spread of these trees too.
The palm is slowing down in the production of its fruit and I guess that means we won’t be seeing these lovelies for much longer. So I’m going to enjoy them while they are still visiting and try to hone a more silent, if still somewhat crazily excitable response, when they fly in.