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Spinifex Pigeon | Geophaps plumifera
Spinifexduif | Paloma plumífera
The Spinifex Pigeon is the small, briskly walking pigeon of the red interior: rufous with black barring, a long thin crest held upright like a plume, and a bright red face mask outlined in black. It flies only when it has to and would rather run, in short quick steps, between the spinifex hummocks.
Voice
A surprisingly wide repertoire for so small a pigeon, from a soft, high coo or cooloo-coo to a deep rolling coo-r-r-r that carries far in desert silence. Like all pigeons it calls with the bill closed, so the sound is hummed rather than sung. In display the cooing goes with deep bowing and vigorous head-shaking.
No freely licensed recording has been found for this species yet; what to listen for is described below.
Identification
A compact pigeon of just over twenty centimetres, cinnamon to rufous above with narrow black bars across wings and back. The head carries a grey forehead, a large bright red mask round the eye bordered in black, a white stripe from chin to eye and a black throat; below that runs a white breast band. The long, thin, upright crest fixes it at any range. In the interior and the east the belly is white (race leucogaster), in the Pilbara rufous (ferruginea).
Confusion species
Confusion is barely possible: no other pigeon of the dry interior combines a pointed crest with rufous barring and a red face. Crested Pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) also has a thin upright crest, but is grey-brown, considerably larger, and a bird of open woodland and towns rather than rocky spinifex country. The two rock pigeons (Petrophassa albipennis and Petrophassa rufipennis) share the rocky ground but are larger, crestless and dully vermiculated. Diamond Dove (Geopelia cuneata) comes to the same waterholes, but is grey with white spots and long-tailed.
Habitat
Spinifex flats of Triodia and Plectrachne, rocky hills, gorges, scree and stony plains; always within walking distance of permanent water, because it drinks daily and will not travel far to do so. It takes seed walking on bare ground between the hummocks and shelters in the shade of rocks through the heat of the day. The nest is a scrape on the ground, sheltered by a spinifex hummock.
Where the bird is most often found, arranged by main group and formation.
Range and movements
Across the arid and semi-arid country of northern and central Australia. The nominate race runs from the Edgar Range in Western Australia to the west of the Northern Territory, leucogaster holds the centre and east — southern Northern Territory, north-western Queensland and north-eastern South Australia — and ferruginea the Pilbara, from the De Grey to the Gascoyne and the Carnarvon Range. It is sedentary and does not leave the rocky spinifex country.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
Where and when to look
The most reliable place is a gorge with permanent water in the West MacDonnell Ranges — Ormiston Gorge is the classic — where parties of four to twenty birds walk across the car park and the path to the waterhole early in the morning. They are strikingly unshy and allow an approach to a few metres; sit down and wait rather than walking after them. In the Pilbara the gorges of Karijini do the same, with the rufous-bellied form.
Conservation
Least Concern (LC), with a large range in thinly settled country and a population not declining to any degree. It is tied, though, to permanent water and to spinifex, and that combination is vulnerable: fires that are too frequent and too hot, and heavy grazing around watering points, can strip the hummocks and the seed supply locally. In most places it has remained a common and conspicuous bird.
Scientific name
Geophaps plumifera | Gould, 1842
Gould described the species in 1842 as Geophaps plumifera and there it has remained, so author and year carry no parentheses. The genus Geophaps was introduced in the same year by G. R. Gray, from Greek geo-, 'ground', and phaps, 'wild pigeon' — for the strongly terrestrial habits of the bronzewings. plumifera is Latin for 'plume-bearing', from pluma, 'feather', and ferre, 'to carry', after the conspicuous crest. The type came from the north-west coast of Australia. The Dutch and English names both point at the spinifex grass the bird is tied to.