The World Is Going Crazy Over This Malaysian Bird, Calling It “The Hot Pigeon”
Twitter is calling it the “Hot Pigeon” but pink-necked green pigeons are extremely common in Southeast Asia.
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Recently, a tweet of a pink necked green pigeon (Treron vernans) went viral, with over 48K likes and 4.1K retweets at the time of writing.
have u ever seen such a beautiful pigeon ? pic.twitter.com/9PArpmeUSz
— shelby lorman (@sdlorman) March 8, 2021
The bird is quite a sight: sporting a pretty pastel pink-and-purple colour palette with a shock of orange on its chest, green and blue hues on its body, and bright pink feet. This particular bird was shot in Singapore by a Singaporean photographer Chong Lip Mun.
Naturally, people from all over the world fell in love.
please let this bird know that it is in fact the most beautiful pigeon i've seen
— woman (level-2) (@ya_im_sad) March 10, 2021
Native to Southeast Asia
The thing is, Treron vernans are extremely common birds in Southeast Asia, from Malaysia to Thailand to the Philippines. They are a beautiful sight and a favourite of birdwatchers due to their bright plummage.
In Malay, they are known as Punai Kerichai or Gading, and often take up residence in forest edges, mangroves, and even home gardens that have food and shelter.
According to the Malaysian Nature Society, they are quite shy and easily startled. They like to hide in bushy trees such as mango trees, and often eat figs, jambu kera, simpoh air, the berries of the Straits Rhododendron, and the red fruits of the Fish Tail Palm.
(Credit: Michael MK Khor/Flickr)
Rediscovering beautiful Southeast Asian birds
In fact, this isn’t the first time the colourful bird has taken the international scene by storm. In fact, the same picture went viral 8 years ago too!
Most urban city-dwellers all over the world may only be most familiar with the grey-coloured common pigeons that are considered a nuisance or the big noisy crows that poop all over your car. But there are plenty of extremely beautiful parts of nature that exist… we just have to keep an eye out.
You can watch a (remarkably fat) pink necked green pigeon chew on some berries in Bukit Gasing, Petaling Jaya here:
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