Ducula aenea
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~90% in a week >90%
The green imperial pigeon (Ducula aenea) is a large forest pigeon. The large range extends from Nepal, southern India and Sri Lanka eastwards to southern China, Indonesia and the Philippines. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the green imperial pigeon in his six volume Ornithologie. He used the French name Le pigeon ramier des Moluques and the Latin Palumbus moluccensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the green imperial pigeon which he placed with all the other pigeons in the genus Columba. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Columba aenea and cited Brisson's work. Brisson believed his specimen had come from the Maluku Islands but the species does not occur there and in 1918 the type locality was designated as the island of Flores in Indonesia. The specific name aenea is from the... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 2 | Tangkoko Nature Reserve | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 3 | Komodo National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 4 | Wilpattu National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 5 | Sinharaja Forest Reserve | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 6 | Udawalawe National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 7 | Yala National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 8 | Danum Valley Conservation Area | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 9 | Tanjung Puting National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 10 | Minneriya National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 11 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 13 | Way Kambas National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 14 | Sepilok | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 15 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 16 | Cat Tien National Park | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | |
| 17 | Bali Barat National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 18 | Royal Manas National Park | 🇧🇹 Bhutan | |
| 19 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 20 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 21 | Taman Negara National Park | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 22 | Horton Plains National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 23 | Kerinci Seblat National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 24 | Kinabalu Park | 🇲🇾 Malaysia |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colombo [Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte] | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 2 | Thrissur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Kochi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Singapore | 🇸🇬 Singapore | |
| 5 | Ponnani | 🇮🇳 India |
Likely
About 60% of wildlife watchers report a Green Imperial-Pigeon sighting in Udawalawe National Park on a given day, based on 297 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 17th most-seen of the 166 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 90%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
October and November
In those months about 70% of wildlife watchers report a Green Imperial-Pigeon in Udawalawe National Park on a given day, against about 30% in August, the lowest month. Those are among Udawalawe National Park's wettest months, with about 310 mm of rain a month against 45 mm in June.
Between midnight and 3 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Green Imperial-Pigeon sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
6th of 24
Of the 24 parks where we can rate Green Imperial-Pigeon sightings, Udawalawe National Park ranks 6th at about 60%. The best odds are in Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary (Malaysia, about 80%), Tangkoko Nature Reserve (Indonesia, about 80%) and Komodo National Park (Indonesia, about 70%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Columbidae
The closest relatives of the Green Imperial-Pigeon that you can see in Udawalawe National Park (family Columbidae, Pigeons and Doves) are Pearl-necked Dove (about 90%), Orange-breasted Green-Pigeon (about 60%) and Sri Lanka Green-Pigeon (about 40%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Green Imperial-Pigeon is recorded against all the birds logged in Udawalawe National Park (297 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
