Dove

The family group of Columbidae covers birds like Pigeon & Doves, this group has 310 birds world wide of which 30 of them are residents in South east Asia.

Then from that figure of the birds resident in South East Asia, I have weed out only the Doves which were reported as sighted in Malaysia before and it is summarized as the list below

1. Asian Emerald Dove

9.Spotted Dove

10. Peaceful Dove

The criteria for these group of birds are plump and well rounded bodies, small heads and short beak plus short legs. They should be gregarious birds and usually frugivorous. But from the later write-up below, I mentioned quite a few a ground scavengers, picking up dropped seeds and ripened fruits

The pictures of the Doves show that these  birds bear close resemblances with the Pigeon which are also thrown into this group.

From the list of Doves mentioned, whatever pictures posted is a good representation of how often, these could be sighted. The number of pictures also demonstrates, even with meeting up with the birds, I was given the chance to see them properly. For the low land species I have small numbers of pictures and the sub-montane species of the Little Cuckoo Dove I got the full set. Good demonstration  of how well the bird could be sighted.

At the first glance, it is  a long list of names of Pigeons that could be sighted in Malaysia. Most of which are Green Pigeon, and convey the impression that there must be lots of jungle Pigeons in Malaysia.

In contrast, lower down on this page, the comparatively low number of pictures of pigeons that I have in my possession. This scenario will serve as an indicator as to how few the numbers of species that could be spotted.

There are plenty of domesticated  pigeon flying in the urban area. Yes, there are also a good number of wild Pigeon seen too, particularly in the rural area. Unfortunately, these commonly seen Pigeon, quite likely is one belonging to a single species of the Green Pigeon - the Pink-necked Green Pigeon. On rare occasions,  a couple of other wild species of this group, could be sighted on a chance meeting basis.

Beside the more often seen Green Pigeon, there are the bigger Pigeons. Really large Imperial Pigeons, for example, the Mountain Imperials which is fairly common in the mountains, whilst on the contrary, the Green Imperial from the dense lowland forest is very rare. The Nicobar Pigeon rumored to exist in the Langkawai Island were hardly seen.

Lastly on the topic of spotting wild Pigeons, we are all conditioned to see the domesticated Pigeons gathering in large flock in city squares or in front of Indian temples. These are actually Rock Pigeon and the feral cousins, they are good size at 33 Cm. It is etched into our memory that we associated Pigeon as stocky rounded birds. In the field the Green Pigeons are more slender, some even smaller.

This is a short tour to show how readily are the Pigeons in Malaysian could be sighted. Shown by using the number of pictures I have collected as benchmark, then one can gauge their chances of meeting up with the various species of wild pigeons.

While domesticated pigeon are seen in abundance at temple ground and urban streets, wild pigeons on the contrary are not easily sighted. Even at the forest edge or deep jungle, catching a glimpse of them is by chances. I myself have a conscious map of where these pigeon were spotted before and the timing of these previous sightings. Perhaps my jottings were not comprehensive enough, repeated sightings is very very rare.

I will keep adding them as I get new pictures for updates