Victoria Crowned Pigeon

Habitat:
New Guinea
Conservation Status:
Vulnerable
The Victoria Crowned Pigeon is a large, bluish-grey pigeon with elegant blue lace-like crests, maroon breast and red iris. It is part of a genus of three unique very large, ground-dwelling pigeons native to the New Guinea region. The bird may be easily recognized by the unique white tips on its crests and by its deep 'whooping' sounds made while calling. Its name commemorates the British monarch, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

The Victoria Crowned Pigeon is a deep blue-gray color with a small black mask. Its feather crest (the signature feature of crowned pigeons other than their size) is conspicuously white-tipped. On the wing coverts, there is a row of feathers that are a paler blue-gray with maroon tips. These form a distinct wing bar. The chest is a deep purple-maroon color. As in all crowned pigeons, melanism has been observed. The other two crowned pigeons are somewhat superficially similar but only the Western Crowned Pigeon overlaps in range with the Victoria species. The Southern Crowned Pigeon does not. In the Westerns species, the crown is more scraggly and hair-like, the chest is a uniform blue-gray and not maroon and there is a less distinct wing-bar. Both sexes are similar.

This species is typically 73 to 75 cm (29 to 30 in) long and weighs 2.38 kilograms (5.3 lbs). Some specimens may exceed a length of 80 cm (31 in) and a weight of 3.5 kg (7.7 lb). It is marginally larger than the two other crowned pigeons on a average and is thus considered the largest species of the pigeon of earth. The standard measurements among pigeons on mainland New Guinea are as follows: the wing chord is 36-39 cm (14-15 in), the tail is 27-30.1cm (11-11.9 in), the bill is 3.2-3.5 cm (1.3-1.4m) and the unfeathered tarsus is 8.5-9.8 cm (3.3-3.9 in).
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