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Superb Fruit-Dove

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Habitat: Rainforest

The Superb Fruit-Dove is found in rainforests, rainforest margins, mangroves, wooded stream-margins, and even isolated figs, lilly pillies, black-berries and pittosporums.

When Superb Fruit-Doves feed, they often actively crawl over and through the foliage in the canopy of the rainforest in search of fruit, sometimes even feeding while hanging upside down. Although they are brightly coloured — a spectacular mixture of purple, burnt orange, green and blue-grey, sprinkled with black spots — they are often difficult to see while foraging in the crowns of trees and their presence is most often betrayed by the sound of fruit falling through the leaves and onto the forest floor below. They are among the most important seed dispersers in Australian tropical and sub-tropical forests. Superb Fruit-Doves often move at night, and many young birds fly into windows of buildings during their north-south movements. The Superb Fruit-Dove may also migrate to New Guinea in winter, but little is known of its movements, or the reasons for its sometimes southerly flights as far as Tasmania.

Superb Fruit-Doves are arboreal (living entirely in trees) and feed almost exclusively on fruit, mainly in large trees. They have a large gape, which allows them to swallow bulky items.

Superb Fruit-Doves build a flimsy platform nest of twigs in bushy trees from 5m-30m above the ground. Their breeding season is from September to January. The female lays one egg and incubates the eggs at night while the male incubates by day. Incubation is 14 days and the nestling period is 7 days.