“Pink-necked Green Pigeons (Treron vernans griseicapilla)
have become increasingly common in the city due to the city council penchant for planting palms and the fair number of ficus trees available. Pink-necked Green Pigeons, like most green pigeons, feed in the canopy for figs/fruit and have rarely been documented descending to ground, except perhaps to drink (see Wells 1999) (below).
![PNGP-ground feed [AmarSingh] 1](http://www.besgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/PNGP-ground-feed-AmarSingh-1.jpg)
“I saw 4 birds feeding on, what appears to be, a discarded mango fruit in a public field. I suspect a sweet mango on the ground was too much to resist. I saw some degree of aggression among them but, by the time I was able to get close, using the car as a hide, two birds (a male and female) had flown away (below).
![PNGP-ground feed [AmarSingh] 2](http://www.besgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/PNGP-ground-feed-AmarSingh-2.jpg)
“The remaining adult male was very possessive of the fruit and only occasionally gave the adult female opportunities to feed. These opportunities happened, I suspect, due to my watching presence which distracted the male.
“The video recording better illustrates this ‘defence’ of the food source (see video below).
“Wells (1999) states ‘once at a source of fruit males in particular become aggressive …. in temporary defence of foraging patches within the canopy’.
![PNGP-ground feed [AmarSingh] 3](http://www.besgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/PNGP-ground-feed-AmarSingh-3.jpg)
“Once the male left the female could eat in peace (above).“
Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
21th May 2017
Location: Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
Habitat: City, urban environment
Lee Chiu San
Dear Amar,
Habits are different in your neighbouring country South of the Causeway. Here, I frequently see Pink Necked Green Pigeons foraging on fallen fruit.
I have a Ficus benjamica in my garden, and my neighbour has both rambutan and chiku trees whose branches hang over my side of the fence. When these trees fruit, quite a lot of the fruits fall to the ground. Pink Necked Green Pigeons join the Javan Mynahs which are the usual scavengers of this largesse.
Amar-Singh HSS
Dear Chiu San,
thank you for the kind response & observation. The comment I made on not ‘ground feeding’ was quoting Wells 1999 which applies not just to Pen Malaysia but also Singapore and south Thailand. So your observations become even more important as they are uncommon. It would be good to document them in images/video and post on BESG for reference.
blessing, Amar