]ambu Fruit Dove chick walking out ofnestfor thefirst time at 10 days old.

included.The Chicago Zoological Society

(Brookfield Zoo) received its first pairof ]an1bu Fruit Doves in May of 1987.The birds were in1ported fro111 Thai­land, with the 111ale estiInated to betwo years old on the basis of his plu­mage. After the loss of the felnale the111ale bird was sent to the St. Louis Zooin early 1988 on a breeding loan. Hewas returned to Brookfield in early1989 and paired with a new wild­caught fen1ale.

The birds were housed in the freeflight exhibit, a large (52' x 32' x 30'high) mixed species aviary with an

Male]ambu Fruit Dove brooding seven-day-old chick.

neo, and nearby s111aller islands. It isat least paltly 111igratoly, often COIningto grief by landing near lighthouses,on ships, or in cities (Goodwin 1983).

Despite occurring in a populousregion of Asia and being described inregional bird guides (Smythies 1960;King and Dickinson 1975), little isknown of courtship displays or othernesting behavior in the wild. Roberts(1991) provides excellent descriptionsof some courtship behaviors andson1e displays at the Memphis Zooand Aquariun1; however, since theirbirds did not build their own nests nodescription of nest building was

N~.r:.u

(J)

E~>.

..Qoo

.r:.a...

Observations on Courtship,Nest..building and Nesting

(Ptilinopus jambu)

]ambu Fruit Doves allopreening. 'Ibisbehavior is usually initiated by thefemale(right).

8 January / February 1994

The ]ambu Fruit Dove (Ptilinopusjambu) is a member of an Old Worldbranch of the large family Columbi­dae. This branch is s0111etin1esreferred to as the sub-family Trero­ninae, the fnlit pigeons and fruit doves(Peters 1937). The fruit doves of thegenus Ptilinopus are found in theAustralasian faunal region. Most spe­cies are predominantly green in color,with bands and patches of contrastingcolor and pink or purple caps (Good­win 1983; see color plate in Skutch1991).

The ]ambu Fruit Dove has a fairlywide distribution in the wild. It inhab­its forests and other wooded areas inthe Malay Peninsula, SU111atra, Bor-

TheJambu Fruit Dove

by Nancy BentChicago Zoological Society

Brookfield, Illinois

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(800) 735-8537

was chosen, as evidenced by thefemale sitting on a high branch inanother Ficus tree with the male sit­ting quietly next to her. The next daythe male performed several of his dis­play flights and began to play withtwigs, but didn't bring any to thefemale until two days later. The birdsfollowed the previous pattern of thefemale doing all the nest buildingusing materials provided solely by themale. Though, in general, pigeonshave not developed the art of nest­building to a high degree (Skutch1991), this time, after three days, afairly sturdy little platform was built.On the third day, after the birdsceased construction of the nest, themale spent the entire day on the nestand appeared broody. The female satnear him on the nest branch off andon all day.

During the next nine days the pairestablished a pattern of the male sit­ting during the day and the femalesometimes on the nest early in themorning but always sitting by lateafternoon. This incubation schedulehas been observed in most pigeonsstudied (Roberts, pers. comm.; Skutch1991), though one pair of Jambus at

rest of the day with the male.The female had apparently chosen

this branch as her nest site. The nextday the male searched the exhibit allday for dead Ficus twigs, which hebroke off and took to the female. Thefemale took the twigs from the maleand inserted them into her nest plat­form. Goodwin (983) states thatarboreal pigeon males collect twigsfrom trees and shrubs and bring themto the nest site, where the female doesthe building. Our birds always fol­lowed this pattern. Many of the twigsfell, and though several were caughtin branches and leaves below the nestnone were ever retrieved by the male.He also never used any of the twigs,straw, moss, and other materials thatwere provided for the other nestingbirds in the exhibit.

This behavior pattern continuedduring the four days that the pairworked on the nest. The femalestayed on the nest virtually all day,arranging the twigs that the malebrought to her. Most of the twigs con­tinued to fall, and this may be whatprecipitated their abandoning of thisnest site.

A few days later a second nest site

earth floor. The exhibit was heavilyplanted with several mature Ficus ofvarious species along with lower veg­etation, and contained a small streamwith a series of pools.

Several nest platforms of a designused successfully at the St. Louis Zoowere installed and the male birdshowed interest in them almost imme­diately. He sat on one of the platformsand rearranged the sticks and othernest materials we had provided. Healso called off and on, usually from aperch in the lower canopy of the Ficustrees. When calling, the male tuckedhis head down into his semi-erectedneck feathers, his throat swellingimpressively with each "coo-coo." Wenoted that when the exhibit exhaustfans were operating, the soft voice ofthe male was drowned out, corrobor­ating Roberts' observation of back­ground nose interfering with his hear­ing of the Jambu calls (Roberts 1991).

The male made impressive flightsaround the exhibit, flying in a stereo­typed pattern and usually landingwithin one foot of the female. He wasregularly observed on or near the nestplatforms. He also was seen attempt­ing to preen the female, and attempt­ing to give her dead twigs that he had ,..-----------------------------­broken from the Ficus trees. Thefemale, unfortunately, never re­sponded to any of these cOllrtship dis­plays and stayed by herself much ofthe time. After approximately one yearthis female was trapped from theexhibit and shipped to the MemphisZoo. In trade we received a sevenmonth old female.

The new female was bred andparent-reared at Memphis. Sheappeared interested in the male imme­diately upon release into the exhibit,staying with him constantly. The malecontinued to call off and on and soonwas seen attempting to break off Ficustwigs and flying rapid patterns aroundthe exhibit. When he landed near thefemale she immediately began topreen his breast feathers, concentrat­ing her attentions on the bright pinkpatch on the male's upper breast. Themale responded by briefly preeningthe female's breast.

TWCfweeks after her release into theexhibit the female was observed sit­ting on a Ficus branch. She had pulledthe closest leafy twigs under herbreast and appeared broody. After afew minutes sitting quietly on her"nest," she flew away and spent the

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Memphis Zoo changed off severaltimes daily (Roberts 1991).

No egg was ever visible, so ourassumption was that the birds werebroody and sitting on an empty nest.In hindsight (and in comparison withlater nests) we now believe that thebirds had an egg which fell from thenest at nine days into incubation. Thisnest was quite high in the canopy andnot observable from above. We havefound that the birds envelop the eggwith the breast feathers. Therefore,when an observer is stationed belowthe nest, the egg is not visible eventhrough the open latticework of thenest platform.

Roughly a week after the failure oftheir second nest, the birds wereobserved copulating. This followed about of allopreeening, after which thefemale simply crouched and the malemounted. When the copulation wascompleted, the birds continued toallopreen. One day later they beganbUilding their third nest, a few inchesdown the branch from their first nest.This nest also took three days to build,and on the fourth day the male wasobserved on the nest.

The birds reestablished the patternof the male incubating during the daywith the female relieving him in lateafternoon. The female usually had tophysically displace the incubatingmale by gently pushing him off theegg. The male would then spring intoflight from the nest and the femalewould quickly settle onto the egg. Thenon-incubating bird always stayedaway from the nest except at chan­geover.

The egg finally was observed on dayfive of incubation when the femaleshifted position. It was a typical whitepigeon egg, quickly covered as thefemale enveloped it in her breastfeathers. Incubation continued to dayten, when the nest collapsed over­night and the egg disappeared.

A new behavior was noted from thefemale while the pair was buildingtheir fourth nest. When the malelanded next to the female she quiv­ered her wings as the male gave herthe twig. This behavior exactly resem­bled the begging behavior laterobserved from Jambu Fruit Dovechicks, and we observed it off and onduring nest building bouts from thatpoint on (see also Skutch 1991). Thefourth nest collapsed after three days.

The fifth nest was situated on the

same branch and in approximately thesame location as nests one and three.The male appeared to lead the femaleto this site in the morning. He thenturned around, treading with his feetand making "tucking" motions underhis breast with his beak. The femalespent approximately 20 minutespreening the male's breast and feet,after which he' flew away. The femalemoved to the same spot occupied bythe male and, as he brought her twigs,built a nest. The pair worked on thisnest for the usual three days with theegg appearing on the fourth day (asevidenced by the male incubating inthe morning).

Unfortunately, this egg was discov­ered broken under the nest on daynine of incubation. It contained awell-developed embryo and had avery thin shell. We became concernedthat the female was laying thin-shelledeggs, which the birds were puncturingor cmshing as they attempted to incu­bate and then throwing from the nest.We later learned that thin-shelled eggsappear to be common for this species(Herb Robelts, pers. comm.).

At this point the birds had beenpaired for two months and hadattempted to nest five times, produc­ing three eggs. We were concernedabout the female producing so manyeggs in a fairly short period. Pigeonsin the wild are subjected to heavy pre­dation on eggs and nestlings, andhave thus developed short incubationand nestling periods. The small brood- one chick! - of the Jambu isquickly reared if all goes well, and iflost to predation, is quickly replacedas long as food is plentiful. Anyonebrood is therefore expendable (Good­win 1983), Since our birds were well­nourished on the Brookfield Zoo fru­givore diet (diet formulation availableon request), we assumed that rapidegg production for a limited timewould not hUlt the female.

The apparent inability of the birds tobuild a sturdy nest was another prob­lem. We had tried inserting wire plat­forms under the previous nests, buteither the platforms caused the birdsto desert the area or they normallychoose a new site for each nest. Eachsite proVided good horizontal SUPPOIt,but the birds built the typical pigeon'snest consisting of a flat pile of looselyinterwoven twigs with a slight centraldepression (Goodwin 1983; Skutch1991). The eggs either rolled off the

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While we discussed our options, thebirds moved around the exhibitapparently investigating nest sites. Noobvious signs of courtship werenoted, but one morning the femalewas found sitting in a broody posnlreon a large, moss-covered platform thathad been installed in the exhibit forSunbitterns (Eurypyga helias). Whenthe male relieved the female on the"nest" we were sure that she had laid.The birds had not built any nest oradded any material to the platform.This egg fell from the nest the nextday, presumably during changeoverof incubation duties.

The birds immediately began court­ing again, and five days after the lossof the last egg the female had chosena new nest site. This nest was built ona fairly low Ficus branch in the frontpart of the exhibit, right above theperch of the resident Green-wingedMacaws (Ara chloroptera). TheJambuFruit Doves never appeared nervousor bothered by their proximity to thevisiting public or the macaws, evenwhen the noise level became exces­sive. This nest site also allowed muchcloser observation by the keeper staff.After four days of building, the femalelaid an egg at approximately 1:00 p.m.The male began to incubate almostimmediately after the egg was laid.

After the loss of the first four eggs,we decided to altificially incubate thisone. We were ready with a dummyegg prepared from a Sun Conure(Aratinga solstitialis) egg which wasfilled with plaster. The male was sit­ting so tightly that he had to be gentlypushed from the nest before the eggscould be switched. At the same timewe reinforced the nest. Because thebirds had rejected nests in the pastthat had been reinforced with wire,this nest was reinforced with a plat­form of glued together Ficus twigs.We also assumed that the attraction ofthe egg would outweigh the disturb­ance we were causing, which wasproven true when the male returnedto the nest less than ten minutes afterwe left the exhibit.

Ironically, when the birds switchedoff incubation in late afternoon theydislodged the egg. The female wasdiscovered on the nest about

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cia! nest platforms. After a brief court­ship consisting mainly of allopreen­ing, the female built all the nests byherself using materials provided bythe male. The one time the birds didnot build any nest at all was probablybecause the female was physiologi­cally ready to lay before the birds hadselected a nest site. We discoveredthat the birds would accept augmenta­tion of a nest they were using if it wasdone with natural materials (twigs)and if an egg was present. Robertsreported that birds at the MemphisZoo will also accept an augmentednest, but only after the female had laid(Herb Roberts, pers. comm.). Finally,our birds have continued to build theirown nests, losing eggs occasionallybut successfully rearing severalchicks.

Observations made upon birds incaptivity, particularly those in semi­natural enclosures, can reveal behav­ior patterns difficult to observe in thewild state. "Little recorded of itshabits" and "Display: no information"are all that Goodwin (983) repolts ofthe Jambu Fruit Dove, despite hisextensive lists of references. Avicultur­isrs have a responsibility to record andreport courtship, breeding, and nest­ing behavior observed in their captivecollections. In these days of shrinkingbudgets for animal behavior studies inthe wild and rapidly disappearing nat­ural habitats, we may be the only oneswho will ever be able to observe andrecord this information.

Acknowledgements:Patty McGill (Brookfield Zoo) and Herb Roberts

(Memphis Zoo and Aquarium) for helpfulcomments on the manuscript.

Scott Schiller and the entire staff of the PerchingBird House for help with all phases of ourjambu Fruit Dove breeding program.

Literature CitedGoodwin, Derck. 1983. Pigeons and doves of the

world, third edition. Comell University Press,Ilh"GI. New York.

King, Ben F. and Edward C. Dickingon. 1975. Afield guide to the birds of South-east Asia.Collins, London, England.

Morris, Hon. 1991. North American regional stud­book for the Black-naped Fruit Dove (Ptilino­pus melanospila). North Carolina ZoologicalPark, Asheboro, 'orth Carolina.

Peters, James Lee. 1937. Checklist of birds of theworld, Vol. 3. Museum of Comparalive Zo­ology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Robens, Herb. 1991. Breeding the Jambu FruitDove at the Memphis Zoo and Aquarium (Plil­il1op/lsjamb/l). Watchbird 18:36-39.

Skutch, Alexander F. 1991. The life of the pigeon.Corneliliniversity Press, Ithaca, New York.

Smylhies, Bertram E. 1960. The birds of Borneo.Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, Scotland.•

5:00 p.m. peering down at the dummyegg on the sand below. The un­damaged egg was returned to the nestand more Ficus twigs added as rein­forcement. The female returned toincubate fifteen minutes later.

The entire 18-day incubation passedwithout further incident, with the nestholding up well and the dummy eggstaying where it belonged. Mean­while, the genuine egg was develop­ing normally in a 99.5°, 54-56%humidity incubator. Pigeons take aday or more to hatch (Skutch 1991),and our chick was no exception. Itpipped on day 17 and was fullyhatched by the midmorning of day 18.The chick was allowed to dry forabout an hour and then was placed inthe nest with both halves of the eggand the dummy egg removed. Themale was first to return to the nest andhe cautiously approached the chickbut did not step onto the nest. Thefemale then landed next to the male.She was bobbing her head velY excit­edly and appeared to be anxious toget to the chick. She finally hoppedover the male and onto the nest,immediately settling onto the chickand brooding. She fed it for the firsttime one hour after it was placed intothe nest.

The parents switched off more oftenwhile tending the chick than they didwhile incubating eggs. Robelts (991)describes the appearance, growth anddevelopment of Jambu Fruit Dovechicks at the Memphis Zoo. Our chickfollowed the same developmentalstages. The chick first walked out ofthe nest at ten days old and flew forthe first time at 12 days old. By fiveweeks of age he was about half thesize of his parents and still beingtended by them.

The parent birds began allopreeningand copulating approXimately threeweeks after the chick fledged. Fromthis nest attempt on we have not inter­fered to reinforce the nests or to altifi­cially incubate the eggs. The birdshave lost some nests and eggs buthave also raised several chicks. Allnesting attempts have followed thesame basic pattern as describedabove.

In summalY, it took seven nests andfive eggs in a three month periodbefore ourJambu Fruit Doves success­fully raised their first chick. With oneexception, the birds built their ownnests and would not utilize any anifi-

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