The trocaz pigeon is endemic to the island of Madeira. It is a mainly grey bird with a pinkish breast. Its silvery neck patch and lack of white wing markings distinguish it from its close relative and probable ancestor, the common wood pigeon.
About Trocaz pigeon in brief
The trocaz pigeon is endemic to the island of Madeira. It is a mainly grey bird with a pinkish breast. Its silvery neck patch and lack of white wing markings distinguish it from its close relative and probable ancestor, the common wood pigeon. Despite its bulky, long-tailed appearance, this pigeon has a fast, direct flight. A scarce resident breeder in laurisilva forests, it lays one white egg in a flimsy twig nest. Its numbers fell sharply after human colonisation of the Madeira archipelago, and it vanished altogether from Porto Santo Island. The major cause of its population decline was habitat loss from forest clearance, but hunting and nest predation by introduced rats were also contributory factors. Protection of the laurel forests and a ban on hunting have enabled numbers to increase, so that the species is no longer endangered. The only other pigeon currently present on Madeira is the feral pigeon; this is slimmer, has more pointed wings and a much smaller tail. It often has dark wing markings, and a lighter flight.
The genus Columba is the largest within the pigeon family, and has the widest distribution. Its members are typically pale grey or brown, often with white head or neck markings or iridescent green or purple patches on the neck and breast. The sexes are similar in appearance, but the juvenile has generally browner plumage, with limited or no development of the silveryneck patch. Its closed wings have a scaly appearance due to pale buff feather edges. Its call is a characteristic six-note cooing, weaker and lower-pitched than that of the wood pigeon, and typically consists of six syllables with the middle pair of notes extended and stressed: uh-uh hrooh-hrooh ho-ho. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Canaries, Azores, and Madeira have a volcanic origin and they have never been part of a continent. At various times in the past, the major islands were all colonised by ancestral wood pigeons, which evolved on their respective islands.
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This page is based on the article Trocaz pigeon published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
