Laura Erickson's For the Birds

This beautiful large pigeon commutes long distances between its nesting and roosting sites in mangroves and its feeding areas, wherever native fruiting trees are available. Sometimes flocks of them move 30 miles or more in a day, island hopping to where trees and shrubs are in fruit. Important feeding plants include shortleaf and strangler figs, black torch, royal palm, coco plum, pigeon plum, cordia, broad-leaved blolly, ratwood, boxwood, gumbo-limbo, mastic, black poisonwood, willow bustic, black ironwood, paradise tree, Bahama strongbark, inkwood, pigeonwood, and lancewood.

White-crowned Pigeons are shyer around humans than Florida’s non-native pigeons and doves, and are usually seen only from a distance, the dark body and white crown the best “field mark,” but closer views reveal much more complex and exquisite colors and textures, especially around the head and nape.