I was excited enough the first time I saw topknot pigeons at home a few years ago visiting the native iolvive trees  that grow in our rainforest.

topknot pigeons in flight

This year a sudden whooshing of wings alerted us to a flock of abut 50 landing for a rest in a large eucalyptus tree. A few days later there were about a hundred of them, feeding on native olives and figs and possibly other trees I couldn’t see clearly on the steep inaccessible slopes across the creek.

They are important seed dispersers, not only because they can swallow large seeds but because they are string fliers and readily travel over cleared paddocks between forest fragments.

They are quite unmistakeable, a lare grey pigeon with a crazy hairdo. and usually in or near rainforests (or flying between them).  They shouldn’t be confused with the smaller, crested pigeon, which is sometimes called topknot, and is a bird of open habitats, including suburbs and dry woodlands.

Now, in mid-September, after about a month of daily visits,  they seem to have had their fill, eaten everything readily available, or found something to their liking elsewhere, as we haven’t seen them in the past few days. We’ll look forward to their next visit.