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More than half the rainforest pigeons that live in Australia have bright colours. Most of them have small ranges and rarely travel much distance. The Pied Imperial Pigeon is a also considered a rainforest bird but is white with black trim and travels huge distances in it's daily life.
Each year in Spring about half a million Pied Imperial Pigeons travel from mainland Papua New Guinea to Queensland's Wet Tropics to breed. Typically they nest on offshore islands like Low Isles off Wonga Beach. At the end of the breeding season scientists conduct counts at Low Isles where about 30 000 birds are recorded.
At daybreak Pied Imperials start the daily flight to the mainland to feed in the fruit trees of the Daintree rainforest and the floodplain of the Daintree Valley. Often passengers on the Great Barrier Reef tour boats from Port Douglas will see small groups of stragglers on their way out to the reef and on their return.
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