| Subject: First photos of rare dove in
Timor-Leste
BirdLife International
First photos of rare dove
28-02-2005
A rare and enigmatic dove has been photographed live for the first time
in Timor-Leste.
In early August 2004 Flaminio Xavier of the East Timor Ministry Of
Development and Environment spotted a bird trader walking along the street
in Bidau area, Dili, Timor-Leste, carrying birds in cages and cardboard
boxes. He stopped the man and started to have a chat to him, informing him
that hunting and selling birds was illegal. Flaminio managed to get hold
of one of the boxes of birds but the man soon fled with the other.
The box held one Slaty Cuckoo-dove Turacoena modesta (Vulnerable) and
another bird that Flaminio didn't recognise. This turned out to be a Wetar
Ground-dove Gallicolumba hoedtii. There also were two birds of this
species in one of the other boxes. Before fleeing the man indicated that
the birds had been caught in the Betano area on the south coast of Timor-Leste
in the Sungai Clere area.
Wetar Ground-dove (Endangered) is only known by c.20 specimens
collected at unspecified localities around the beginning of the twentieth
century on Wetar. It has been recorded at only three localities in West
Timor (including only one record during a nine-week survey in 1993), and
was not recorded during recent surveys on Timor-Leste.
Flaminio kept the dove at his relatives' house where it was
photographed by Colin Trainor, who had been working in Timor-Leste on
behalf of BirdLife. The dove was released back to the wild in Nov 2004.
http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2005/02/wetar_ground-dove.html
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