Global Range: (200,000-2,500,000 square km (about 80,000-1,000,000 square miles)) Breeding range includes southern Florida from Biscayne Bay south through the Marquesas Keys (Bancroft 1992), Bahama Islands, Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles south to Antigua, Cayman Islands, and islands and coasts of the western Caribbean, from the Yucatan Peninsula southward through Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama (AOU 1998). Most of the population occurs in the Greater Antilles and Bahama Islands (Bancroft and Bowman 2001). In the upper Florida Keys, Florida Bay is the primary nesting area (Strong et al. 1991). During the nonbreeding season this pigeon occurs throughout most of the breeding range but occurs more widely (and somewhat unpredictably) in Florida and along the mainland Caribbean coast of Middle America, where some breeding islands are evacuated during winter (Howell and Webb 1995, AOU 1998). Wintering individuals appear to move nomadically in response to fruit availability (Bancroft and Bowman 2001).
In Puerto Rico, the largest present breeding concentration is along the eastern coast and northern coast (all in mangroves except at Dorado Beach), with a small nesting congregation in hardwood forest of magotes east of San Sebastian; the largest breeding concentration is on Isla Mona (Wiley 1979).
Extent of occurrence (EOO), excluding areas of water, appears to somewhat exceed 200,000 square kilometers. BirdLife International (2008) estimated EOO at 236,000 square kilometers.
Rights Holder: NatureServe
