They are a frequent prey item of Pied Currawongs and no doubt other predators.
From: Canberrabirds [
On Behalf Of John Brannan
Sent: Monday, 8 March, 2021 9:19 AM
To: John Layton
Cc: Canberra birds
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] Fatalities among Crested Pigeon young.
Crested Pigeons regularly nest in trees at the bottom of our garden, and several times over the years I’ve come across chicks sitting on the ground below the nest, still unable to fly and apparently without the wit to find a hiding place.
I’ve found that lifting them up onto perches above the ground generally serves little purpose, as they end up back on the ground a short time later. Nonetheless, as you observe, they’re thriving in Canberra, so they’re obviously doing something right.
Florey
On 7 Mar 2021, at 4:52 pm, John Layton <> wrote:
Our postie stopped at the letter box on Friday morning and told me she’d just seen a “crow” prising a squashed baby bird off the bitumen.
“It was ghastly,” she said, “I nearly up-chucked my Weet-Bix.”
I stepped back in compliance with COVID19 distancing rules and explained that the “crow” was in fact an Australian Raven while she pointed to a small object on the road 20 metres away and resumed her mail run, Weet-Bix still on board.
I inspected the remains and identified them as being those of a fledgling Crested Pigeon. I returned to the house and five minutes later noticed that the raven was back tugging at the carcass, pulling it clear of the road surface and flying
away with it. This is the fifth dead C. P. chick I’ve found in our area during the last three weeks, often after heavy showers.
Curious to learn about fatalities among these youngsters I turned to HANZAB Vol 3 p. 909 viz, ... when 14- 19 days old, young begin to sit on twigs near nest during day and return to nest at
night; do this for 3-4 days then leave nest tree; spend next few days on ground, under shelter of dense growth. Young may roost on nest at night after fledging Presumably, during these early stages they are quite
vulnerable to predation, inclement weather and, if disturbed from shelter of dense growth, could move onto a nearby street with fatal consequences.
Nonetheless, the species appears to be doing very well in our area since I first noticed they were becoming common c. 1990.
--
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the Canberra Ornithologists Group.
Emails posted to the list that exceed 2 MB (2,000 kB) in size, including attachments, will be rejected.
All emails distributed via the list are archived at http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds.
It is a condition of list membership that you agree to your contributions being archived.
Canberrabirds mailing list
m("lists.canberrabirds.org.au","Canberrabirds");">
https://lists.canberrabirds.org.au/mailman/listinfo/canberrabirds
|
ATT00001.txt
Description: ATT00001.txt
|
