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Fruit Doves of Fiji

Fruit Doves are all small, compact birds and to those unfamiliar with them not immediately apparent as doves either in flight or when foraging. Five Fruit Doves are found in Fiji and they include some of Fiji's most spectacularly beautiful birds.

The Many-coloured Fruit Dove is widespread throughout Fiji but is primarily a forest bird, and rarely encountered away from mature forest, but locally it may be found in isolated stands of favoured fruiting trees, generally figs Although generally a bird of large and intermediate-sized islands, it readily travels between islands and is sometimes found on small islands, even those with poor forest.

These doves are active, gregarious feeders on small fruits and berries, generally in the canopy, but it is figs, especial^b the fruit of those of the towering strangling figs which they are particularly fond of, and forests or forest remnants well stocked with these are always attractive to this dove.

50c - It is the male Many-coloured Fruit Dove Ptilinopus perousii, a name which aptly describes this beautiful dove, which many believe is Fiji's most attractive bird, although this is only apparent on close inspection when it can be seen to be truly multi-coloured; at a glance it appears pale cream with a deep crimson cap and band across the back. In flight, or high in the canopy, the male appears creamy-yellow.

65c - The female Many-coloured Fruit Dove is much less attractive than the male being a drab grey-green, darker on the back and wings, with pale yellow undertail. Interestingly the female is very similar in appearance to the Crimson-crowned Fruit Dove

P^a~nopus porphyraceus another common Fijian Fruk Dove, and in this dove both sexes have a similar plumage. This makes identification in field problematic, but fortunately they have very different calls which readily distinguish them, and the Crimson-crowned Fruit Dove is restricted to Fiji's smaller and some medium-sized islands.

90c -TheWhistling Dove Ptilinopus layardi is also endemic to Fiji but is restricted to the islands of Kadavu and Ono. The Whistling Dove has an unremarkable plumage, but it has a very strange call for a dove - a loud rising whistle which is immediately followed by a short falling trill or tinkle, the latter only heard at close quarters.

$3 - If the endemic Orange Dove ~ti/inopus victor gives way to the Manycoloured Fruit Dove as Fiji's most attractive bird, the male is certainly Fiji's most conspicuous bird and a sight of this bird in flight is the highlight of many a visiting bird watcher's journey to Fiji, a journey which will have taken them to the islands of Taveuni andVanua Levu or their offshore islands.

FDC - Fiji's Golden Dove Ptilinapus luteovirens is endemic to Fiji, occurring on the Fijian islands of Viti Levu, Ovalau, Waya, Beqa and Gau. While the male is a striking golden yellow colour which is best observed whilst it is flying, the female is a drab green colour.This dove is a forest species but common also at the forest edge and in the intermediate vegetation zone where it frequents forest patches, secondary scrub and gallery forest. Golden Doves are predominantly agile subcanopy feeders of a wide variety of small berries and fruits.The Golden Dove has a very strange call for a dove, the male delivers a sharp yapping call somewhat similar to a puppy's bark heard at a distance, it has a strong ventriloqual quality.

As the Golden Dove is a widespread and common species where it occurs, this yapping call is a characteristic sound of theViti Levu bush, though the tall is far more often heard than the dove is seen.

$3.00	$0.65
$0.90	$0.50

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