EEP Crowned pigeon number 4

EEP STUDBOOK CROWNED PIGEONS
As soon as the male has found a suitable place, he produces a call-note (the "booming call"),
to attract his female to the place. The female squatting at the selected nest-site initiates serious
nest building. The male reacts to this by seeking for suitable material (not too big branches)
and carrying it back to her (Goodwin, 1983). After the first branches have been placed, both
crowned pigeons start looking for more suitable branches. Sometimes they build a new nest in
just a couple of days, but sometimes they need one or even two weeks to finish the nest
(Wetzel, 1991).
The mating behaviour is described well too (also from ex situ data). Both individuals are on
the ground and the male starts walking around the female with upstreched wings. The female
is responding by also lifting her spread wings and running around the male or running beside
him with slightly bent legs, holding her bill close to his and uttering short, harsh, hissing calls.
Once the female is "frozen", the cock-pigeon stands behind her and bows his head behind her.
If the female allows him to do this and doesn't walk away, the male tries to impress her by
making himself bigger by lowering his wings. After some tries he jumps on the female and
then copulates with the female. Both birds bow their tail-feathers, which makes it possible to
copulate. This will last for about five or ten seconds (Lommers, 1982) After this the cockpigeon
jumps off the female and bows his head more times to ground, while producing a
sound ("boom-pa….boom-pa….boom-pa….), which is called "the bow-coo" (Van Rijn,
1995). Shortly afterwards male and female jump three till five times towards each other,
touching each other with their breasts. Finally both birds start cleaning themselves (Fleay,
1963).
Incubation and fledging
In the wild the birds build a nest approximately 3.5 till 15 meters above the ground (Coates,
1985), probably in the axil of a tree, or at a division of two branches (Rand and Gilliard,
1967). Usually the nest is very simple and consists of a lot of small branches. If the birds
build the nest themselves, it has a size of 450 x 250 mm (Rand and Gilliard, 1967). They look
for an open spot in the forest to build their nest, which enables them to take off from and land
on the nest more easy. During the Archbold Expedition, No 42 (in the late 30s) five nests of
scheepmakers crowned pigeons were found. They were found in typical situations, allowing
for size of bird, in trees at heights varying from 12 to 50 feet (4 till 15 meters). The nests were
(for pigeons) solid and compact but small, made of sticks, stems, palm leaves and tendrils
(Rand, 1942, in Coates, 1983).
Crowned pigeons usually only produce, just like other large ground-feeding pigeons
(Goodwin, 1983), one egg per clutch. A function of one-egg clutches might be to enable the
brooding parent to protect the squab better during tropical rainstorms. One egg clutches may
also be an adaptation to a relatively un-nutritionous diet which affects the quantity or quality
of parental crop milk or to intense selection pressure for quick growth and early fledging of
the young (Snow, pers. comm. to Goodwin, 1983). McMorris (1976). On the contrary, reports
that in San Francisco Zoo in 1974 a few times a clutch of two eggs was produced. But it can
not be proved that one female laid these two eggs, because three male common crowned
pigeons and two female victoria crowned pigeons inhabited this aviary. Outstanding enough,
the first chick of both clutches died shortly after birth, while the second was raised by the
"parents" (McMorris, 1976). The two females in the aviary could have laid these two eggs.
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