Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons

CHAPTER SEVEN PINK PIGEON POSTSCRIPT

By 1975 the Black River project had a pair of Pink pigeons, the female of which David McKelvey reckoned was too old to breed, and two odd male birds. As there had been no breeding success by 1976, it was thought imperative that some more birds be caught to increase the captive breeding stock. The problem was that the entire flock of pigeons appeared to have vanished from the cryptomeria grove. Looking for thirty-five birds in that vast area of forest was a Herculean task. John and Dave spent many hours soaked to the skin, hopefully surveying various areas; but all searches were in vain. When they should have been in the cryptomerias, building their ridiculous nests, they were nowhere to be seen. This was extremely worrying. With the benefit of hindsight we now think that the two cyclones, which had forced us to abandon Round Island and had bogged us down for so many days, were responsible for retarding the breeding season. However, at the tail end of our final trip, the Pink pigeons suddenly returned to the cryptomeria grove and started to nest.

Since nothing had been done between 1975 and 1976 and it seemed most urgent that a reasonable breeding group should be established, both in Mauritius and in Jersey, I decided that, after we had returned to Jersey, John should return to try to capture more Pink pigeons for the captive breeding project at Black River and to procure a breeding nucleus for us here. So after we had returned to Jersey with our precious cargo of Round Island geckos and snakes, John had to prepare to go back to Mauritius once again.

When he got back, he went straight to the cryptomeria grove and found himself a suitable tree. From this vantage point he could survey most of the valley. He settled down to await the Pink pigeons. After three hours, he began to wonder whether the pigeons had once more moved out of the cryptomerias to some other area. Then, glancing about, he suddenly saw, in the tree next door to him, a Pink pigeon sitting on a nest. As he said, ‘Once I’d seen the damn thing, it was obvious that I had been staring at it for three hours and it had been invisible.’ Greatly excited, he climbed down, made his way to the base of the tree with the nest in it, and sat there until dark to make sure that no monkeys found it, for he could hear troops of them all around in the forest.

When it was dark, he hurried back and alerted Wahab, Tony Gardner and Dave. The four of them planned to return to the nest at dawn. If there was a baby in the nest, they proposed to take it and replace it with a young rammier pigeon of the same size. Then they planned to put mist nets round the tree to catch the parent birds. All worked very well. They found to their delight that the nest contained an almost fully-fledged baby and this was duly replaced with the baby rammier pigeon. Then, with great difficulty, they rigged up the mist nets.

However, when the mother bird returned, either by cunning or stupidity — one suspects the latter — she evaded the nets but happily continued to feed a baby which in no way resembled her own. They waited all day but without success and so, leaving the nets in position, they went home to return the following morning at dawn. By the time they got back, monkeys had found the nest. It had been destroyed and the rammier chick devoured. So, although they could not catch the parent birds, at least they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had saved the Pink pigeon baby from being killed. It was kept in the aviaries at Black River and within three days was flying and feeding itself.

Meanwhile, John continued to search for nests, and soon discovered another one containing an egg. He and Dave had discussed at length what they should do in a case like this and had decided on a course of action. From Dave’s observations they knew that both the sexes incubated the eggs and that the change-over between the parents occurred at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. approximately. So the plan was to take the egg, to be placed eventually in the incubators at Black River, and to substitute for it a domestic pigeon’s egg. Then the nest was to be covered with a specially adapted bal-chatri in the hopes of catching the parents. By this means we would know that we had secured a true pair, for since the sexes were alike, if you caught an odd bird it was difficult to know what sex it was. The bal-chatri is a very ancient device used by falconers for capturing hawks. It consists of a rounded cage, like an old-fashioned meat or cheese safe, into which is put one’s bait — in the case of hawks, a bird and in the case of the nest, an egg. The whole of the top of the contrivance is covered with fine nylon nooses. The idea is that, once the bird lands on the bal-chatri, it will get its feet entangled in one or other of the hundreds of little nooses that cover it.

In due course, Dave climbed the tree and replaced the egg with a domestic pigeon’s egg. Then he carefully positioned the bal-chatri over the whole nest. During this process the male pigeon had sat some thirty feet away and, according to John, showed no alarm and only a mild interest in what was happening. As soon as Dave had climbed down, the bird flew over and sat in the tree; it wandered about the branches, twice walking over the bal-chatri. The third time, however, it was caught. They could hear it flapping frantically. David shinned back up the tree like lightning and captured the flapping bird only just in time, for it had been caught by only one toe. They waited two hours; then the female returned to the nest and was also caught within a very short time. In triumph, they transported the first known true pair of Pink pigeons to Black River.

Elated by the success of this method of capture, they decided on a concentrated search for more nests. With the addition of Zozo and two others to their numbers, they proceeded to comb the woods and within a week had tracked down four occupied nests. Out of this number, they managed to procure two more true pairs, and an odd female to join the two odd males at Black River.

Out of the eggs in the nests, one was found to be addled but on the morning that John left for Mauritius two of the others were successfully hatched under domestic pigeons and another hatching was awaited. This means that now, with seven adult specimens, the Black River project is viable, with enough Pink pigeons to ensure the captive breeding of the species.

John returned to Jersey with two pairs and an odd youngster. They have settled down remarkably well. This now means that, while the search for a solution to the problems of the monkeys and the preservation of the cryptomeria grove goes ahead, we hope that in Black River and in Jersey we will successfully breed a big enough population, protected from monkeys and cyclones alike. Eventually we will be able to return progeny to Mauritius to reinforce the tiny handful of wild birds left in their precarious habitat.