The Japanese wood pigeon (''Columba janthina'') is a species of columbid bird. It is found in

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...

along shorelines of the Pacific's

Korea Strait The Korea Strait is a sea passage in East Asia between Korea and Japan, connecting the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The strait is split by the Tsushima Island into the Western Channel and ...

, Philippine Sea and East China Sea. They are believed to be the largest representative of their genus, '' Columba'', at 550 grams (1.2 lb) and 43 cm (17 in). Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are temperate

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. The species is in decline owing to

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

, habitat degradation, deforestation and hunting. This wood pigeon is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to the laurel forest habitat.

Description

Columba (Carpophaga) janthina Fauna Japonica

The largest pigeon in the East Asia region, with a length of between 37 cm to 40 cm long and sometimes 43.5 cm. The head is small. There is at least three subspecies of Columba janthina, with some plumage differences. It is very dark in appearance, with a small head, a longish neck and tail. Overall the body is soot-black with iridescent green or purple on crown, shoulders and sides of neck. The irises are brown and have red color legs, having a rather long tail. Whole body is covered with shiny black feathers. Its inconspicuous plumage is mainly black with the crown and rump bright metallic purple. The back and chest have green purple metallic sheen. Bill is longish, narrow and dark. The beak is greenish blue. Tip of the beak is ivory to pale yellow. Fleshy covering on the beak (cere) is small. This species has no sexual dimorphism, the sexes are similar in appearance, but the juvenile has generally paler plumage, with limited or no development of the pale yellow neck patch. Tarsi are red in adults while paler in juveniles. Appears like a crow in flight, with large wings and slightly fanned tail. *''Columba janthina janthina'' Karasubato. The head is covered with black feathers. Color light blue and dark blue beak. *''Columba janthina nitens'' The head is covered with purple-red feathers. The beak is black color. It has reddish or purplish coloration on face, head and upper back of neck.

Distribution

This bird lives in small islands of the East China Sea, mainly in the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yona ...

, Iwo Jima and

Bonin Islands The Bonin Islands, also known as the , are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some directly south of Tokyo, Japan and northwest of Guam. The name "Bonin Islands" comes from the Japanese word ''bunin'' (an archaic read ...

and also along the southern coasts of

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

and Japan. While more abundant and with a greater range in the past, it is still thought to be resident on 15 islands and islets. It occurs locally on small islands off the south coast of South Korea. In Korea, this bird is distributed and nest in

Ulleungdo Ulleungdo (also spelled Ulreungdo; Hangul: , ) is a South Korean island 120 km (75 mi) east of the Korean Peninsula in the Sea of Japan, formerly known as the Dagelet Island or Argonaut Island in Europe. Volcanic in origin, the rocky s ...

Island, Jeju-do and some area of south coast. It has been recorded as vagrant in eastern

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

, Shandong, mainland China and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. ''Columba janthina'' is an uncommon and local resident in Japan, on small islands off southern

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island se ...

Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...

and Kyushu, south through the Nansei-Shoto islands in the

to the

Yaeyama Islands The Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島 ''Yaeyama-rettō'', also 八重山諸島 ''Yaeyama-shotō'', Yaeyama: ''Yaima'', Yonaguni: ''Daama'', Okinawan: ''Yeema'', Northern Ryukyuan: ''Yapema'') are an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa P ...

and the Izu Islands to the Ogasawara and

Iwo Islands The or are a group of three Japanese-governed islands in Micronesia. They lie south of the Ogasawara Islands and belong to the municipality of Ogasawara, Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. The islands are all active volcanoes lying atop ...

. Distributed in Honshu region of Japan. Although it is still relatively common on the Izu Islands, it has apparently declined there since the 1950s, it was thought to have declined on

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

during the 1980s because of forestry activities. The subspecies ''Columba janthina nitens'', which occur on the Ogasawara and Iwo Islands, is very rare.

Ecology

It is a

pigeon Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

which is

to some islands of the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, i ...

Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. It is one of four seas named after common colour ter ...

, and East China Sea. It is mainly an isolated island wood pigeon, a robust and confident forest bird with the same characteristics of other genus ''Columba'' pigeons adapted to habitat and vegetation of island laurel forest. Like some island races of

common wood pigeon The common wood pigeon or common woodpigeon (''Columba palumbus''), also known as simply wood pigeon, wood-pigeon or woodpigeon, is a large species in the dove and pigeon family (Columbidae), native to the western Palearctic. It belongs to the g ...

and some species of the

Macaronesian Macaronesia (Portuguese: ''Macaronésia,'' Spanish: ''Macaronesia'') is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the North Atlantic, off the coasts of Africa and Europe. Each archipelago is made up of a number of Atlantic oceanic islands ...

or Pacific islands, wood pigeons have a low rate of reproduction. Most of the wood pigeon's diet is vegetable, although food habits in ''Columba janthina'' are defined as omnivorous. It eats

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wo ...

s and small snails—but with strong trend to eat plants, leaves, flowers, drupes,

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, rasp ...

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

, acorns, pine nuts and other conifer seeds, Kurogane mochi or (

Ilex rotunda ''Ilex rotunda'', commonly called the Kurogane holly, is an evergreen tree in the holly family (Aquifoliaceae). It is native to east Asia, where it is found in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.mochi-no-ki (

Ilex Integra ''Ilex integra'', the elegance female holly, also called mochi tree, is an ornamental tree of the holly genus, which is native to parts of Asia, including Korea; Taiwan; the mid-southern regions of China; and Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu in Japan. ...

), Sazanqua

Camellia sasanqua ''Camellia sasanqua'', with common name sasanqua camellia, is a species of ''Camellia'' native to China and Japan. It is usually found growing up to an altitude of 900 metres. It is an evergreen shrub growing to 5 m tall. The leaves are bro ...

, Tsubaki

Camellia japonica ''Camellia japonica'', known as common camellia, or Japanese camellia, is a species of flowering plant in the family Theaceae. There are thousands of cultivars of ''C. japonica'' in cultivation, with many colors and forms of flowers. In the U.S. ...

, mulberry tree,

ficus ''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extendi ...

, Machilus thunbergii, Nandinia domestica... This bird eats seeds varied, buds and fruit it collects directly from the trees. Feeding on trees and do well in soil. It has a preference for trees near ponds and rivers. A resident breeder in

laurisilva Laurel forest, also called laurisilva or laurissilva, is a type of Subtropics, subtropical forest found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable, mild temperatures. The forest is characterized by broadleaf tree species with evergreen, glo ...

forests, the wood pigeon lays one white

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

in a flimsy twig nest. The nest is located in a tree cavity or in the rocks. Lays eggs one at a time in September. Spawning has only one egg. This species occurs most frequently lonely. Gliding and slowly soaring flight through repeated. Flight is quick and performed by regular beats. An occasional sharp flick of the wings is characteristic of pigeons in general. This wood pigeon live in dense subtropical forests. It also live in beaches and islands in the

evergreen broadleaf forest In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

. It inhabits dense subtropical forest and warm temperate evergreen broadleaf forests, and is heavily dependent on mature forest, whose seeds were dispersed by this birds that eat the berries. It browses on leaves and buds, especially nitrogen rich foliage during breeding. The diet changes seasonally as the availability of fruit changes, and leaves can comprise the major part of the diet at certain times of the year, such as when there is little fruit around. It caught flowers and buds at the tips of the branches. One of their favourite leaves to eat is from genus ''

Prunus ''Prunus'' is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes (among many others) the fruits plums, Cherry, cherries, peaches, Peach#Nectarine, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. Native to the North American temperate regions, the neotropics of Sou ...

'', young shoots from

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

Caryophyllaceae Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactacea ...

, and cruciferous, rounded and fleshy leaves of

ilex ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

. They play an important ecological role, as they are the only birds capable of eating the largest native fruits and drupes from some native trees. Its numbers fell sharply after human colonisation of the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arc ...

s, and it vanished altogether from some Islands. The major cause of its population decline was

from forest clearance, but hunting and nest predation by

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

and rats were also contributory factors. Protection of the

laurel forests Laurel forest, also called laurisilva or laurissilva, is a type of subtropical forest found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable, mild temperatures. The forest is characterized by broadleaf tree species with evergreen, glossy and elo ...

and a ban on hunting could enable numbers to increase, although this species is still endangered. ''Columba janthina'' is a type of wood pigeon that normally habitates on a ''

'' Linne but lives on a Machilus thunbergii forest in Korea. For that reason, the distribution of the '' Machilus thunbergii'' and the Japanese wood pigeon are closely related and the preservation of ''Machilus thunbergii'' is directly connected with protection of Japanese wood pigeon. Environment of Japanese wood pigeon is in silver magnolia of seaside to eat fruits of a silver magnolia between the late July and the late August. The growing site of silver magnolia which is naturally growing in the coast of Sa-dong, Nam-myeon, Ulleungdo Island, is the representative place of the Japanese wood pigeon's migration. Therefore, this region is designated and is protected as a Natural Monument in order to protect Japanese wood pigeon.

Classification

*''Columba janthina janthina'' — Japanese wood pigeon, purple pigeon, Temminck, 1830 Karasubato. *''Columba janthina nitens'' — red-headed wood-pigeon, Quercus acuta wood-pigeon. *''Columba janthina stejnegeri'' — Kuni Jonah crow dove.

References

* Del Hoyo J., Elliott A. Sargatal & J. (1997)''Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 4, Sandgrouse to Cuckoos.''BirdLife International, Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, 679 p. * Prin J. & G. (1997) ''Encyclopedia of Columbidae''. Prin Editions, Ingres, 551 p. {{Taxonbar, from=Q495139

Japanese wood pigeon The Japanese wood pigeon (''Columba janthina'') is a species of columbid bird. It is found in East Asia along shorelines of the Pacific's Korea Strait, Philippine Sea and East China Sea. They are believed to be the largest representative of the ...

Birds of the Ryukyu Islands Natural monuments of Japan

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Birds of Korea Taxa named by Coenraad Jacob Temminck