White-crowned Pigeon | Patagioenas leucocephala

Voice

A low, powerful coo with an owl-like quality: croo, croo, coo-crooo, often repeated many times from a hidden perch. On take-off the clatter of the wings is audible.

Identification

33–35 cm, slender, with a fairly long tail. The entire plumage is dark slate grey, black at a distance. The crown is pure white in the male, greyer white and less extensive in the female. On the nape is a patch of green-glossed feathers with a fine black-and-white scaled pattern, visible only in good light. The iris is white, the bill red with a pale tip, the legs red. Young birds are browner grey, lack the nape patch and white iris and show at most a few pale feathers on the crown. Flight is fast and direct, often low over the water.

Confusion species

The white crown combined with the dark body is found in no other pigeon in the guide area. Red-billed Pigeon Patagioenas flavirostris and Pale-vented Pigeon P. cayennensis have a vinaceous head and breast and a grey belly and no white on the head. Short-billed Pigeon P. nigrirostris is smaller and browner and lives in the interior of humid forest, not on the coast. Dark Rock Pigeons Columba livia have a dark head, often a pale rump and black wing bars, and keep to towns and harbours.

Habitat

Breeds in colonies in mangroves on small coastal islets and cays, locally also in coastal forest and in gardens and parks of coastal towns. Forages in dry lowland forest, coastal forest, gardens and scrub some distance from the coast, commuting there in flocks. Eats almost exclusively fruit and berries, including figs and gumbo-limbo Bursera simaruba; the breeding season coincides with the ripening of these fruits. The nest is a loose platform of twigs in the mangrove.

Range and movements

Along the Caribbean coast of the guide area, mainly on islands. In Mexico on the coast and islands of the Yucatán Peninsula, such as Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, Contoy and Holbox, and locally inland in Quintana Roo. In Belize on the cays and along the coast; in Honduras mainly on the Bay Islands. Scarcer on the Corn Islands of Nicaragua and along the coast of Limón in Costa Rica. In Panama mainly in the Bocas del Toro archipelago, with a few records from Guna Yala. Outside the guide area in southern Florida, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the northern Lesser Antilles.

• Resident
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

How and when to look

Early in the morning and late in the afternoon along the coast, when flocks commute between the breeding islets and the feeding areas, for example on Cozumel, on Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker in Belize, on Roatán and Utila and in Bocas del Toro. In gardens with fruiting trees the call often gives the species away before the bird itself is seen.

Conservation status

Near Threatened. The population is declining through the loss of dry lowland and coastal forest, disturbance of breeding colonies and hunting. Because the species breeds in large, local colonies and depends on seasonal fruit, hurricanes and the development of coastal islands for tourism are also a risk.

Scientific name

Patagioenas leucocephala | (Linnaeus, 1758)

Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Columba leucocephala; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Patagioenas was introduced in 1853 by Reichenbach. Patagioenas is Greek, from patageō 'to clatter' and oinas 'pigeon', after the clattering wings on take-off. leucocephala is Greek, from leukos 'white' and kephalē 'head', after the white crown. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Bahamas.