Beautiful Fruit Dove

The first time I saw Beautiful Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus pulchellus) was in lowland forest of Manokwari in 2011. I was guiding 2 Dutch tourists - Thomas (father) and Sandra (daughter) at that time. A trap set-up by local hunters caught the bird. I asked them to release the bird after taking some pictures of the bird and checking its species name in field guide book Birds of New Guinea. 

My first picture of Beautiful Fruit Dove

Beautiful Fruit Dove in Waigeo island of Raja Ampat

Since then I have seen the bird in a lot of my birding trips from Manokwari to Tambrauw, Sorong and Raja Ampat. It is a small but very beautiful dove that likes to eat berry fruits. The first picture was taken from very close range using Nikon Coolpix P500 and the second one was made in Waigeo island of Raja Ampat using Canon 200D and Tamron 150-600mm G2 lens. The dove was in a branch of a tree several meters above my head.

Although point and shoot camera such as the Nikon P500 has got much smaller sensor, its zoom lens often can easily reach birds in distant branch of a tree. For a D-SLR cameras, they need expensive lens to reach the target bird. D-SLR cameras produce high quality photographs but if they cannot reach birds or other wild animals that are far from the photographers, they can be considered as useless.
The newest products of the super zoom camera at the moment are Nikon Coolpix P900, P1000 and Canon SX70HS. These are the types of cameras that are used by birdwatchers who do not want to carry heavy photographic devices.

Also read:

• Birdwatching and Wildlife Watching in Wondama Regency
• Beautiful Fruit Dove from the Rainforest of Manokwari
• Beautiful Fruit Dove in Raja Ampat
• Pinon Imperial Pigeon
• Rainforest Birds