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 Wilpattu National Park on a given day, based on 320 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 17th most-seen of the 169 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
In that month about 80% of wildlife watchers report a Green Imperial-Pigeon in Wilpattu National Park on a given day, against about 50% in January, March–April and July, the lowest months. That is one of Wilpattu National Park's wettest months, with about 260 mm of rain against 40 mm in February.
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.
4th of 24
Of the 24 parks where we can rate Green Imperial-Pigeon sightings, Wilpattu National Park ranks 4th 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 Wilpattu National Park (family Columbidae, Pigeons and Doves) are Pearl-necked Dove (about 80%), Asian Emerald Dove (about 50%) and Orange-breasted 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 Wilpattu National Park (320 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.
