About Patagioenas plumbea (Vieillot, 1818)
The plumbeous pigeon (Patagioenas plumbea) is 34 cm (13 in) long and weighs 172 to 231 g (6.1 to 8.1 oz). Males have a dark gray head, neck, and underparts, which sometimes show a pinkish or purplish tinge. Their shoulders, back, rump, wings, and tail range from dark grayish brown to drab olive. The hindneck sometimes has bronzy spots. The eye is red and surrounded by bare purplish red skin. Females have a less intense purplish wash than males, but more intense neck spots than males. Juveniles are duller than adults, with very little purplish wash, and some of their feathers have rusty edges. Subspecies of the plumbeous pigeon differ mostly in the amount and intensity of pink or purple coloring on the upperparts. Where their ranges overlap, the plumbeous pigeon can be visually confused with the ruddy pigeon (P. subvinacea), but the two species have very different vocalizations. Six subspecies are recognized with distinct distributions: P. p. chapmani is found on the west slope of the Andes from Colombia south to Ecuador's El Oro Province; P. p. bogotensis is found on the east slope of the Andes from Venezuela and Colombia south to Bolivia's Cochabamba Department; P. p. wallacei is found in extreme eastern Venezuela, the Guianas, and eastern Amazonian Brazil as far west as the Rio Negro and Rio Tapajós; P. p. pallescens is found in eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, and western Brazil along the southern tributaries of the Amazon from the Rio Purus to Pará state; P. p. baeri is found in the Brazilian states of Goiás and northwestern Minas Gerais; P. p. plumbea is found in eastern Paraguay and southeastern Brazil. The plumbeous pigeon inhabits primary and secondary tropical and subtropical rainforest and cloudforest. North of the Rio Orinoco, it occurs between 1,200 and 1,900 m (3,900 and 6,200 ft) in elevation; south of the Rio Orinoco, it only occurs between 200 and 300 m (660 and 980 ft). Populations in southeastern Brazil make seasonal altitudinal migrations.
