Orange-Breasted Pigeons from USM Penang?

Dear all,

Is this a probable pair of Orange-Breasted Pigeon
from USM, Penang?

The first picture is a male. The features lending support to my ID are the green face,
grey restricted to nape, pink restricted to a narrow chest strip, orange
breast patch looks larger than conspecific Pink-Necked Male and bright
lemon-yellow underparts. No shots of the upper tail markings though.
Shot with Canon EF 400mm F5.6L on my EOS 600D at ISO400. 100% crop from
original picture.

The second photo is a shot of a female from the same flock
and from the same picture as the male. Here the grey tail can be seen
with the terminal black band interrupted by the central tail feathers.
Also a 100% crop.

Both images have been photoshopped to increase sharpness
and to reduce noise. I

f confirmed to be Orange-Breasted Pigeons, it may
be a new record for Penang Island as David Wells' book does not list it
as found here.

Any opinions?

Regards,

Hor Kee

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erm.... interesting, hoped that you had clearer shots on the face........

look like Pink-necked Green Pigeon due to wing bar.

wahoo wrote:look like Pink-necked Green Pigeon due to wing bar.

how should the Orange-breasted looked like then? I tot almost the same but cnot find source that shows that.

However, after browsing thru OBI, I come to the conclusion that this is more like a sub-adult male Pink-necked Green Pigeon based on the tail pattern.

The undertail seemed to give the best clue on the ID along with the uppertail pattern is based on my own assumption. Browsing through the undertail pattern of males from both Pink-necked and Orange-breasted, I found that the Pink-necked generally have a dark grey tail with a narrow border of paler grey, some of this grey can be visible in the first photo especially at the outer tail feathers. The Orange-breasted however have a stronger bolder and broader grey tip, at perch from below, the grey end goes as high up to the tip of the vent and must had been very significant when viewed from bottom but failed to be showed in the photo. Due to this grey end at the tail, I found a female Orange-headed that shows a uppertail pattern where the grey end is wide followed by a darker grey band before proceeding with paler grey all the way to the base of the tail, creating a tail band somewhere in the lower middle of the tail. In Pink-necked Pigeons, this is however almost at the edge of the tail due to the narrow grey tips, so the whole tail appears grey with a darker tone/band at the end of the tail. Assuming the male Orange-headed assume the same uppertail patterns as the female since both Pink-necked genders adopt the same uppertail pattern, this bird here failed to show this unique feature of the tail pattern.

The green on the head is barely a good guide especially since juveniles are like females, with a green head and as it develops into a male, the green will slowly be replaced by grey but intermediate processes are very likely, therefore seemingly one have to be extremely careful when they are viewing any green pigeon with a mixture of green and grey in their head patterns.

I would agree with Tou's analysis. Very interesting bird though, illustrating the need to get good views (and photos) of the upper and undertail pattern.