I decided to start this website with the pigeons. Why? They’re ubiquitous and I thought they were boring. I studied Torresian Imperial pigeons on a scientific expedition at the Low Isles in Far North Queensland as a teenager. Endless counts of flocks of birds returning to their nests in the Low Isles in the evening after a days feasting on the mainland to get an idea of their numbers. They’re white with black wing tips and sleek and elegant. Other than this, the other pigeons I’d come across seemed quite uninteresting.
The Torresian Imperial Pigeon
Out at Mt Isa to meet up with a friend – the familiar cry of “stop the car” goes up. And always the question ‘why?’ There’s a bird, ‘of course’. The birdlife out at Mt Isa is definitely worth a visit.
The bird in question is a spinifex pigeon and it’s down on the ground. The initial photo showed a blue membrane across the eye and I think its got some sort of eye problem. The next photo just showed that it had it’s eyes closed! And when I tried to get out of the car to minister assistance it took off being very much ok. Further down the road we find more of them and it turns out that the ground Is where they hang out.
I started to take more of an interest in pigeons.
The crested pigeon, which a lot of people incorrectly identify as the top-knot pigeon has beautiful wing colourings if you can catch it in the right light.
I was beginning to think the top-knot pigeon in the bird books was a figment of the author’s imagination. A friend reassures me that they’ve seen one in real life. Then a trip to Paluma to seek the Golden Bowerbird with a new camera unexpectedly turned up a top-knot pigeon on a branch as well.
We only spent 3 days in Mt Isa on our road trip but got an amazing array of new birds for our collection. The Bronze wing pigeon was another one. We’ve vowed we’ll need to go back as the weather wasn’t great for photos, they’d just had bushfires and the air was hazy.
Another trip to Murwillumbah in NSW this time. Another pigeon I’d never seen before. The Wonga pigeon. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend who is a birdwatcher and can identify the birds that I’m photgraphing.
