Back in the 1840s John Gould, who was so important in the early cataloguing of Australia’s birds, described the Crested Pigeon as one of the “loveliest in its tribe … not surpassed in beauty by any other form from any part of the world”. This could be overstating it a bit.
But rare birds do tend to be admired more than the common ones and in those days he said that it could only be seen by “enterprising countrymen … prepared to leave the haunts of civilised man and wander in the wilds of the distant interior”. And the best parts of that distant interior were the marshes and ephemeral lakes of the Murray-Darling and Eyre Basins where they followed a nomadic lifestyle to cope with the frequent droughts.
Its range began to increase in the 1920s and since then it has arrived in most of the major cities of Australia and is now a fairly common bird in areas where it was formerly unrecorded. The reasons for this success have been much discussed. Climate change has got a good run and since the temperature has been slowly rising since the Little Ice Age it may have played a part. Other more major changes have occurred however. The reduction of tree cover, creation of permanent watering places and the introduction of exotic weeds all associated with pastoral activity have greatly changed the environment in its favour.
The Crested Pigeon showed great flexibility in its food requirements, consuming seeds and some leaves of many pastoral plants and weeds, notably Paterson’s Curse/Salvation Jane, Echium plantagineum, and with native plants of little importance in its diet. See Andrew Black
I came across a pair the other day that were quite confiding. This is unusual in pigeons because, as a rule, they make good eating. Perhaps they recognised me as a well educated human likely to have read the verdict of Charles Sturt, one of Australia’s great explorers, that their flesh is neither tender nor well flavoured.
bobmcgee 