EEP Crowned pigeon number 4

EEP STUDBOOK CROWNED PIGEONS
6.6 Results from the study in Papua New Guinea
6.6.1 Observations and interviews
It is known that crowned pigeons spend most of their time on the ground. Because of their size,
they only fly when it is necessary; for instance in case of danger or to find a safe place to sleep.
They rest upon branches about 15 meter high. At dawn (in the Lakekamu Basin at about 6
o'clock) they come down and start looking for a suitable location to forage. They are foraging
until shortly after noon. At two o'clock it's the hottest time of the day and the birds are going to
small creeks to rest, bath and drink. Later in the afternoon they start looking for a place to sleep,
because at 6 o'clock in the afternoon it's dark again. They do not have fixed trees to sleep,
because they seem not to have a territory.
Also a time budget analysis in captivity was carried out and for this reason the 8 enclosures were
categorized into three different groups: small enclosures with little variation in substrate, plants,
branches and so on, medium enclosures with more variation and large enclosures with a lot of
variation. Now we have a fourth category: the wild. All kinds of behaviour were divided into
seven categories: spatial behaviour (e.g. walking), behaviour in time (sitting, sleeping), sexual
behaviour (incl. hatching the egg), positive social behaviour, negative social behaviour, care
behaviour and metabolic behaviour (feeding).
Behaviour Small Medium Large Wild
Space 4 19 12 32
Time 68 51 46 14
Sex 0 11 25 0
Socpos 0 0 0 0
Socneg 0 0 2 4
Care 8 9 3 14
Meta 20 10 12 36
Especially the metabolic behaviour, care behaviour and spatial behaviour are higher in the wild,
while behaviour in time is much lower in the wild. As well as in the wild as in captivity the
pigeons were observed during the whole active period, which means that during that time it
wasn’t dark. Crowned pigeons in the wild need to look for their food and sometimes it is hard to
distinguish between behaviour in space (“just walking around”) from metabolic behaviour
(“foraging”). Furthermore the pigeons in captivity are many times “just standing” and this
behaviour was observed less in the wild. Crowned pigeons in the wild really need to look for
their food and also be aware of danger. In the afternoon they spend a lot of time on personal care:
they are cleaning their feathers standing at the water-side.
It became clear that birds in a more rich environment are much more active, which means also
attractive to the public. Therefore it is advisable to give the birds different types of substrate,
some shrubs and trees in their enclosure and perches on different heights and locations.
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