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The beautiful Emerald Dove Chalcophaps indica is a widespread and fairly common resident, breeding in tropical southern Asia from the Indian subcontinent east to Indonesia and northern and eastern Australia. They usually occur in forested areas, and though wary (and probably under-reported in public forests where visitors tend to be noisy and move too fast [...]

Want contraband in prison?  How about using pigeons?  Prison guards in Brazil noticed pigeons having a difficult time flying: upon investigation, they discovered that the pigeons were carrying cell phones and drugs!  Reuters has the story.

Wood Pigeons Columba palumbis
Portland Bird Observatory, Dorset, UK. April 2008
 
The UK’s largest and commonest pigeon, the Wood Pigeon Columba palumbis is basically grey with a white neck patch and white wing patches which are clearly visible in flight. Although shy in the countryside (where it is commonly shot as a pest of crops) it can [...]

Crested Pigeon Ocyphaps lophotes
Centennial Park, Sydney, Australia. March 2008
 
The beautiful Crested Pigeon is endemic to Australia and is common in lightly wooded grasslands, watercourses, pastoral areas, sports grounds/golf courses and parks in both rural and urban areas throughout most of the mainland. It is usually found in the vicinity of water, as it has to [...]

I don’t often make “birding statements” claiming absolute certainty as there are just too many variables and (thankfully) too many different people birding to be sure of anything really - but I think I can say without fear of correction that every birder has a “wish list” of birds they’d really, really like to see [...]

An important anniversary passed quietly by recently. It was 93 years ago this month that the last individual of what had been estimated to be the world’s most abundant bird died. On September 1st 1914 ‘Martha’, the last surviving Passenger Pigeon in existence, was found dead in her cage in the Cincinatti Zoo. The following [...]

Rufous Turtle Dove Streptopelia orientalis orientalis
Narita-san, Honshu, Japan. 18 January 2006
 
These Rufous Turtle Doves were photographed on a dull, grey day at the Narita-san Temple complex in the town of Narita (1 hour north of Tokyo). Common throughout East Asia and resident in both Japan and South Korea, they belong to the nominate form orientalis, [...]

Central Catchment Nature Reserve, Singapore
19 December 2005

I’ve just spent nine days at home on “standby” - ie not knowing where I’d get sent just before Christmas: it’s a worry, I tell you!

To cut a rather long story short (I can hear the cheers from here you ungrateful sods - these reports take ages to write [...]

Pink-necked Green Pigeon Treron vernans
Singapore. Several dates.
 
The Pink-necked Green Pigeon Treron vernans is distributed within Southeast Asia - from Southern Myanmar, to the Malay peninsula and Singapore, to Sulawesi, the Philippines and Borneo.

The only commonly seen green pigeon in Singapore (it’s always worth checking flocks of Pink-necked for the locally scarce Thick-billed Green [...]