Fancy Fruit-doves in the South Pacific

BirdNote^®

Fancy Fruit-Doves

Written by Bob Sundstrom
 
What are the most brilliantly colored birds in the world? Are they the birds-of-paradise with their stunning arrays of blues and reds and golds? Or perhaps the dazzling, jewel-like hummingbirds? Or maybe the fantastical lineup of exotic pheasants?
 
Today on BirdNote... fruit-doves! One gorgeous group of birds.

[Beautiful Fruit-Dove calls  ]
 
Fruit-doves are forest-dwelling doves of the South Pacific, found on island groups like the Philippines and New Guinea. There are 54 different species, most about the size of a Mourning Dove, or a bit smaller than a pigeon. And fruit-doves do indeed eat fruit, especially tropical tree figs.

[Wompoo Fruit-Dove]
 
The combinations of bold colors in fruit-doves are unmatched by any other group of birds. One species known as the Beautiful Fruit-Dove has been described as having “a jungle green back and a Granny Smith apple green head, a magenta crown, a lemon-yellow and mango belly bordered with mulberry, a periwinkle face and chest, a ‘laser lemon’ beak, orange-yellow eyes, and ‘tickle me pink’ feet.” It’s nearly impossible for words to do justice to this array of hues. But we can picture it, as we listen...
 
[Beautiful Fruit-Dove calls ]
 
We’ll share some photos on social media and on our website, BirdNote Dot Org.

[Banded Fruit-Dove calls ]

I’m Michael Stein.

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Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. And the Xeno-canto Foundation. Recorded by: ML168397  T Pratt; XC268367 F Lambert; ML223372 P Wrege.
BirdNote’s theme composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Managing Producer: Jason Saul
Associate Producer: Ellen Blackstone
© 2018 Tune In to Nature.org   November 2018/2021   Narrator: Michael Stein
 
ID#  fruit-dove-01-2018-11-12    fruit-dove-01

References: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790313003412

https://www.beautyofbirds.com/fruitdovephotogallery.html

source of quotation: http://www.post-gazette.com/life/my-generation/2014/02/19/Let-s-Talk-Ab….