Nicobar pigeon

Nicobar pigeons eat fruit and seeds that fall on the ground.

They can even eat very hard nuts.

Nicobar pigeons find most of their food on the forest floor. They eat fallen fruit and seeds, and now and then insects and other small animals. The Oregon Zoo says their strong beak is useful for cracking hard nuts.

Inside, they have a thick, muscular gizzard, a part of the stomach that grinds food. The Toronto Zoo says it is lined with hard plates and can grind up large nuts. The pigeons feed alone or in pairs, and are busiest at dawn and dusk.

The IUCN gives a diet mainly of fallen fruits and seeds, with occasional invertebrates, foraged on the breeding islets or on nearby mainland and larger islands. The Toronto Zoo describes a thick-walled, muscular gizzard lined with horny plates that can grind large nuts, and the Oregon Zoo notes a strong bill used for cracking hard nuts.

The Toronto Zoo says birds feed on the ground singly or in pairs and are particularly active at dawn and dusk. The IUCN notes that the breeding islets must lie close enough to large areas of lowland rainforest, which the birds need for foraging.

Nicobar pigeons fly from island to island in flocks.

They sleep on one island and eat on another.

Nicobar pigeons are nomads: they do not stay in one place. They often fly from the small islands where they nest to bigger islands nearby to feed. They often fly in flocks, sometimes up to 85 birds, high above the sea.

If a Nicobar pigeon is startled on the ground, it bursts up into the treetops with a whirr of wings. When it feels threatened, it puffs up its neck feathers, opens its beak wide and makes a grunting sound.

The IUCN lists the species as nomadic. The Toronto Zoo describes frequent commuting between islands, visiting larger islands, even mainland New Guinea, to feed and retreating to smaller ones to breed, often in flocks of up to 85 birds flying at 60 meters or more, with a long neck, broad wings and a very short tail. The Oregon Zoo reports birds alone or in flocks of 20 to 30.

Flushed birds rise with a whirr of wings to the upper forest. Threatened birds erect the neck and back feathers, throw the head forward and open the bill wide with a grunting call (Toronto Zoo). In courtship, males coo loudly and display to the female, ending with a bow (Oregon Zoo; Louisville Zoo).

There are fewer Nicobar pigeons than before.

Rats and cats on islands can hurt them. People are working to keep their islands safe.

The Nicobar pigeon is listed as near threatened, and its numbers are thought to be going down. People trap the birds for food and for trade, and forests on small islands are cleared for farms and logging. Rats, cats and other animals brought to the islands by people can harm many birds at a nesting colony.

International trade in Nicobar pigeons is strictly controlled. Experts want to protect the nesting islands, keep nearby forests, remove rats and cats from important islands and help local people stop trapping.

BirdLife International assessed Caloenas nicobarica as Near Threatened (A2cde+3cde+4cde) for the IUCN Red List (assessed 26 June 2020, published 2021). The global population has not been quantified; the species is described as generally scarce to rare and locally commoner on smaller islets, and is thought to be declining throughout its range.

The IUCN names trapping for food and trade (and perhaps for gizzard stones), clearance of small islands for plantations, illegal logging of big island trees, clearance of nearby lowland forest, and rats, cats and other introduced predators at colonies; introduced long-tailed macaques are thought to have caused declines on islands off West Java. It is on CITES Appendix I. In Vietnam's Con Dao National Park, recent records come from just two islands (nine birds on Tre Nho in 2012). Proposed actions: research, protecting breeding islands and nearby forest, education against trapping, and removing introduced predators.