Feasting Pigeon
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Feasting
Pigeon, Ectopistes
infinitus L 38-40 cm, WS 40-45 cm, Family:
Columbidae
IUCN Conservation Status: Near threatened (NT) (Despite large population numbers, scientists are worried by downward trends)
Description:
Large
pigeon with long, pointed tail, long neck, and small head. Head, hindneck, and upperparts
blue-gray, with darker wingtips and dark spotting in wings. Tail dark with
short, reduced outer feathers with white outer edges. Throat and breast rust
colored, belly white. Sides of neck iridescent bronze to greenish. Eyes and
feet red, bill black. Females smaller, more olive-brown above. The second
largest pigeon on Novasola, it is the longest, longer even than Violet-headed
Pigeons, but lankier, lighter.
Voice:
Voice
a soft cooing, usually in four syllables, sounding much like an old-fashioned
cuckoo clock. A secondary call will be similar, still a four-syllable coo, only
more nasal, harsher, getting quieter with each coo. During takeoff, wing
flapping produces a rapid clapping sound. Large flocks can be deafening, and
heard from miles away.
Range and Habitat:
Extremely
common throughout its range, except Kosatka Island where it is less common.
Found throughout eastern and southern Novasola. Habitat generalists, they can
be found in most ecosystems, including conifer, deciduous, and mixed forests,
forest edge, savannah, chaparral and scrub, prairie and grassland, and wetlands,
but they prefer mixed, open woodlands. Avoids altitudes above 6,000 feet.
Migratory within range, prefers to summer in drier and more wooded areas,
winters near swamps, wetlands, and the coast. Also common in urban and suburban
areas, they frequent parks, gardens, backyards, as well as agricultural fields
and orchards.
Discussion:
Once
the most numerous birds on Novasola, the Feasting Pigeon is extremely common and
familiar across the island. They are so abundant that, much like their relative
the Passenger Pigeon, they will form flocks so large they may darken the sky as
they pass overhead. However, their populations have crashed since white
settlement of Novasola and though the Feasting Pigeon population is still incredibly
large, with some estimates reaching millions of individuals, conservationists are worried by these trends. They fear a combination of overhunting and habitat destruction may cause the Feasting Pigeon to go the way of its relative, the Passenger Pigeon.
Social
birds, Feasting Pigeons form massive flocks, with the largest numbering tens of thousands of
individuals, year-round and breed colonially. These flocks are nomadic, and
travel across the island in search of food and breeding sites. During the
breeding season, flocks will establish nesting sites, some even thousands of acres
across, wherein mated pairs will build nests. These areas are so crowded with
pigeons that many pairs will build nests in the same tree, and in some sites
dozens of nests can be found on a single branch, all built next to one another.
They prefer to build nests in large, mature deciduous trees like oaks, but will
settle for any available space, sometimes weighing down small shrubs or
saplings with nests. Each pair will lay only one egg per brood, with an average
of two broods a year. Both parents incubate eggs and raise the chicks,
including feeding them “crop milk” excretions like other pigeons.
After the nesting season the flocks, now doubled in size, will move on to forage opportunistically. Their diet consists mainly of acorns, nuts, madrone fruit, berries, and cone seeds, but they will also eat buds, flowers, other seeds, grain, and small invertebrates like insects, especially grasshoppers, and worms. Smaller urban flocks will frequently visit bird feeders, dumpsters, botanical gardens, street trees, and landfills for food, and in more rural areas they will take advantage of agriculture by foraging in crop fields and orchards. Because of their numbers, the Feasting Pigeon is considered a pest species, and each year they can cause thousands of dollars in lost crop yield. Many farmers have taken to finding creative ways to combat the birds, and one of the more successful strategies involves training raptors to guard crops. Unsurprisingly, given their numbers, pigeons have an enormous impact on the ecosystem. Many of the deciduous trees on the island produce fruits in masts, and its thought that this evolved along with the pigeon which likewise evolved nomadism to take advantage of food booms. Because much of their diet consists of nuts and seeds, many scientists believe the Feasting Pigeon is responsible for spreading the vast majority of seeds that became trees in eastern Novasola, to the point where perhaps as high as 80 percent of all mature trees east of the Paramounts which sprouted from seeds did so from seeds spread by Feasting Pigeons. Similarly, many species of insects from the order Orthoptera (grasshoppers and locusts) that the pigeons feed on form enormous swarms during the summer, especially in central Novasola, which may have evolved in an evolutionary arms race with the pigeon, where the insects increased swarm size to survive the predation by pigeon flocks, and pigeons could increase flock size because of the greater abundance of food.
In
winter, Feasting Pigeon flocks form roost sites, which like the spring nesting
sites become densely crowded with birds. There have been many recorded
instances of limbs breaking off trees from the sheer weight of so many perched
birds. These sites are often near wetlands, bogs, swamps, or the southern and
eastern coasts where warm currents keep the temperature milder. At night the
birds will gather at these sites to conserve energy and body heat, crowding as
many individuals on a perch as possible, and in the daylight they fly off to
feeding areas.
The
Feasting Pigeon is the closest living relative to the now extinct Passenger
Pigeon of eastern North America and is now the only member of its genus. It shares with its extinct counterpart many of its traits,
including its migratory flock behavior and massive population. At one time, the
Passenger Pigeon was the most numerous bird in North America, and possibly the
most abundant bird on earth. Old sources describe flocks of Passenger Pigeons
so large that they would block out the sun for days as a single flock flew by.
Yet, despite their numbers, overhunting and habitat loss led the Passenger
Pigeon to go extinct in the early 1900s, around the time the Novasolan Research
Corps first documented the Feasting Pigeon. Similarly, the Feasting Pigeon has
undergone dramatic decreases in its population, with hunting and habitat
destruction also to blame. It is estimated that at its peak, Novasola may have
supported a population of 4-4.5 million pigeons, which has shrunk by over two thirds
in just 80 years, and projected to continue shrinking. Because they are so closely related, some scientists have
proposed using the Feasting Pigeon to help repair North American ecosystems
either by introducing them in areas where the Passenger Pigeon once roamed, or
by using it to clone and “de-extinct” the Passenger. Now, the closest living
relative to the Feasting Pigeon is the Violet-headed Pigeon.
The origin of the name Feasting Pigeon is debated, but two major theories exist. One states that the bird was named so for its behavior of gorging and because flocks would eat so much food from an area that nothing would be left once the flock moved on, in other words the pigeon would “feast”. The other theory states that because they were so common, Novasolan settlers would shoot at Feasting Pigeon flocks as they flew by, killing many birds with each shot, so that whenever a flock passed over a settlement or homestead, the people would have an all but guaranteed feast of pigeon meat. The pigeons did make up a large portion of the diets of most eastern Novasolan people. The species name infinitus was given for their seemingly endless flocks and their “infinite” use as a food resource. An older common name for the bird was Thunder Dove, which alludes to large deafening flocks passing overhead which darkened the skies like storm clouds. The eastern city of Culver, NO, owes its name to the bird, as the word “culver” means “pigeon”, and the Feasting Pigeon features on the city flag. The pigeon is culturally significant to many native groups on Novasola, especially nomadic prairie tribes. The Yukandaluk name for the bird is angagina-samagin, literally translating to “flock which sounds like thunder” or “flock that thunders”.
Prior to European colonization, Feasting Pigeons would likely have been the most numerous species of vertebrate on Novasola. Even today, after so much decline, the total population is so large that they may still outnumber any other bird. Migrating flocks of Feasting Pigeons, some large enough to completely block out the sky, are such an impressive sight that people travel from all over the globe to witness them, and these flocks are often considered Novasola's most famous natural spectacle; moreso than the bountiful salmon runs, abundant marine life, awe-inspiring mountains, and so on. Despite the damages they cause to agriculture each year, the pigeons likely bring in as much or more revenue to Novasola through ecotourism. Feasting Pigeon flocks rank among world class natural and scenic wonders.
Considering
all known writings from the Novasolan Research Corps, the Feasting
Pigeon was the most encountered animal species during the first expedition, and
perhaps in all expeditions. There are accounts of the bird from almost every
member of the NRC, and it is clear Feasting Pigeons made up a huge portion of the
NRC’s first expedition diet. Many members were awed and irritated by the
abundance of the pigeons. Despite seeming infinite then, Feasting Doves have
seen huge population crashes since the time of the NRC, and were it not for the
overwhelming amount of written sources, indigenous knowledge, and fossil
evidence, much of what they describe would seem unbelievable.
“There are a number of spectacles this country has to us revealed. The stark vastness should not be confused for emptiness, for across the expanse I have bore witness to wonders of multitude. To say nothing of the thunderclouds of pigeons which darken the skies, there are herds and flocks a plenty." – Expedition log, May 30, 1902
“After
some time on the coast, we have discovered the mouth of a significant river
emptying into the Pacific in a steep-walled canyon. Captain Dyer believes this
to be the river Laurel, which though mapped from the coast has, to anyone’s
knowledge, never been explored. We have boarded the canoes and are travelling
upriver, with eager anticipation.
…
After
a half-day of rowing against the current, the whole crew was disheartened when
as were curved a bend, we could hear further up a waterfall, of seemingly
impressive size. Knowing we could not pass an obstacle of that magnitude, we
were to reach the falls and then return the way we came. Imagine the group’s
surprise, then, when as we approached the source of the noise we found it not
to be an impassible waterfall but instead an enormous flock of Pigeons roosting
in the trees of the river’s edge. So many and so vocal were these birds that
their chatter and their flapping had fooled even me.” – Expedition log, October 6, 1902
“It
is impossible to stay in the Fastwater Territory for any significant period without
an obligatory visit by the Feasting Pigeon. The inescapable thunder of a
Feasting dule [flock] passing over is very nearly a certainty in much of this
country, almost as certain as an agriculturist’s disdain for the bird. Indeed,
it would be of no exaggeration to say that the two opponents, Pigeon and Farmer,
are locked in a veritable war. I have on some occasions been present when a
farmer hears word of an incoming flock, upon which news they drop all other business
to sound the alarm. Humorous as it may sound, many farms and homesteads here have installed
bells, enormous, deafening bells, the ringing of which is reserved for warning
of cataclysm of the greatest kind: crop fires and pigeon flocks. Should anyone hear
these bells, they rush to their crop with all the ammunition they can carry,
dogs and neighbors by their side, ready to ward off the flying menace as best
they can, lest their season’s work be carried away in the bellies of the marauders.
As the dule descends upon a settlement, all human inhabitants take aim and blast
countless birds from the blackened skies; the entire town may be fed by the
fallen quarry for days.
The
pigeons, without the benefit of man’s intelligence and armaments, combat this
war with only their strength in numbers. Though their losses each year to Man
would be devastating to any other army, there seems to be no end of the Pigeon’s
ranks.
…
The Feasting Pigeon, like many of its brethren in other doves, is an expert flier, moving through the sky with such rapidity, such swiftness, and such velocity, that one can only marvel. Their wingbeats, though loud, are quick and their takeoffs are equally rapid. Their acrobatics are complimented by long swooping dives, wherein the bird falls at speeds I have not observed outside some raptors.” – Native Birds of Novasola, 1912
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| The city of Culver, Novasola is named after the Feasting Pigeon ("culver" being an older English word for pigeon) and has long used the bird as a local symbol and mascot. In 1995 Culver adopted a new city flag, shown above, which features a Feasting Pigeon blocking the sun. |