The Trocaz Pigeon is a pigeon endemic to the island of Madeira. It is a mainly grey bird with a pinkish breast; its silvery neck patch and lack of white wing markings distinguish it from its close relative and probable ancestor, the Common Wood Pigeon. It is about 40–45 cm (16–18 in) long with a 68–74 cm (27–29 in) wingspan. Its call is a characteristic six-note cooing, weaker and lower-pitched than that of the Wood Pigeon. Despite its bulky, long-tailed appearance, it has a fast, direct flight. A scarce resident breeder in laurisilva forests, it lays one white egg in a flimsy twig nest. It was formally described in 1829 by Karl Heineken, a German medical doctor and ornithologist, who recognised it as different from the now-extinct local form of the Common Wood Pigeon. Its numbers fell sharply after human colonisation of the Madeira archipelago, and it vanished altogether from Porto Santo Island. The major cause of its population decline was habitat loss from forest clearance, but hunting and nest predation by introduced rats were also contributory factors. Protection of forests and a ban on hunting have enabled numbers to increase, and the species is no longer considered endangered.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trocaz_Pigeon

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

629:

Shahrbaraz usurped the throne of the Sasanian Empire from Ardashir III, but was himself deposed only forty days later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahrbaraz

1521:

Filipino natives led by chieftain Lapu-Lapu (statue pictured) killed Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and more than forty Spanish soldiers at the Battle of Mactan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mactan

1865:

An explosion destroyed the steamboat SS Sultana on the Mississippi River, killing an estimated 1,800 of the 2,400 passengers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Sultana

1961:

Milton Margai took office as the first Prime Minister of Sierra Leone upon the nation's independence from the United Kingdom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Margai

2005:

The Airbus A380, the largest passenger airliner in the world, made its maiden flight from Toulouse, France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

vates: A poet or bard who is divinely inspired. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vates

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. ... Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses any thing in the eye of the physicist who knows that its elements are held together by a force which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a flash of lightning? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake does not suggest higher associations to one who has seen through a microscope the wondrously varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals? Think you that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of a geologist, who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million years ago? … The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.   --Herbert Spencer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer