Blue-eyed Ground Dove
Columbina cyanopis
Stunningly beautiful dove that has only recently been rediscovered. Cinnamon-colored overall but paler below. Note the conspicuous dreamy blue eyes and blue wing spots. Now only known from one location in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where it occurs in open savanna and grasslands on white sands and forages in pairs on the ground. Song is a repetition of soft notes: “wah-wha-wha…”
Identification
The blue-eyed ground dove is 15.5 cm (6.1 in) long. The male's head, neck, wing coverts, uppertail coverts, and breast are purplish red. Its lower breast, belly, flanks, shoulders, and back are browner. Its vent and undertail coverts are white. The closed wing shows dark brown and chestnut with iridescent blue spots. The central tail feathers are rufous and the outer ones darker. Its eye is blue surrounded by bare gray skin. The adult female is paler, especially on its underparts. The juvenile has rufous edges on many feathers and the wing's spots are obscure.
Taxonomy
The blue-eyed ground dove was for a time placed in the monotypic genus Oxypelia. That genus was merged into Columbina by the 1960s. Some plumage features set it apart from other Columbina species and more closely resemble those of the blue ground dove (Claravis pretiosa). The blue-eyed ground dove is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Columbina cyanopis
- Authority
- (Pelzeln, 1870)
- Order
- Columbiformes
- Family
- Columbidae
- Genus
- Columbina
Range and habitat
The blue-eyed ground dove inhabits open savannah and grasslands in the Brazilian cerrado. The only reliable records since 1980 are in the states of Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, and Mato Grosso do Sul, and only in the first of these have any been seen since 2007. There are historical records of specimens from Mato Grosso in the early 1800s, São Paulo in 1904, and Goiás in the early 1940s.<p>The species was rediscovered in 2015, and about 27 individuals among the only known population were left in 2017. In 2023, the chicks of this species was reared in captivity for the first time.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
No information on the blue-eyed ground dove's feeding behavior or diet has been published. It presumably feeds on seeds like the others of its genus.<p>No information is available on the blue-eyed ground dove's breeding phenology.<p>The blue-eyed ground dove's song is "a series of evenly-spaced, soft cooing notes" rendered as "wah", "wuh" or "prrah".
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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