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Pallid Dove | Leptotila pallida
Vale duif | Paloma montaraz pálida | Juriti-pálida
The Pallid Dove is a pale ground dove of the forests west of the Andes, from the Chocó to north-western Peru. With its whitish head and underparts and warm brown back it is the palest Leptotila in the guide area. It lives concealed on the forest floor and is heard more often than seen.
Voice
A low, soft coo, usually one or two notes, oo-ooo, repeated at intervals from the ground or a low branch.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
25–27 cm, with a fairly long, rounded tail. Forehead and face whitish, crown pale blue-grey, nape with a faint purple gloss. The bare skin around the eye is red. Mantle and wings warm rufous-brown. Throat white, breast pale pinkish grey, belly white. The underwing is rufous. The outer tail feathers have white tips. Legs red. The sexes are alike; young birds are duller, with pale feather fringes.
Confusion species
White-tipped Dove Leptotila verreauxi occurs in the same area but is greyer and less rufous above, with blue skin around the eye, and lives more in dry forest and open terrain. Ochre-bellied Dove Leptotila ochraceiventris in south-western Ecuador and north-western Peru has an ochre belly and a darker head. Grey-chested Dove Leptotila cassinii in north-western Colombia has a grey breast and a darker, less rufous back.
Habitat
Humid and semi-humid lowland forest, the wet forests of the Chocó, older secondary forest and dense forest edges, also the more humid parts of the Tumbesian dry forest, from sea level to about 1000 m, locally higher. It forages on the forest floor for seeds, fallen fruit and small invertebrates. The nest is a loose platform of twigs in a shrub or low tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia on the Pacific side, from the Chocó south to Nariño; in Ecuador in the western lowlands and lower west slope; in Peru only in the far north-west (Tumbes). Absent east of the Andes, from Bolivia and from the Galápagos. It does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search in the morning along forest trails in western Ecuador, for example in the reserves of Esmeraldas and El Oro provinces, and listen for the low coo from the forest floor.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Locally fairly common, but the forest of western Ecuador and Colombia has largely been cleared, so the species there is strongly tied to forest remnants.
Scientific name
Leptotila pallida | Berlepsch & Taczanowski, 1884
Berlepsch & Taczanowski described the species in 1884 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Leptotila was introduced in 1837 by Swainson. The genus name (originally Leptoptila) combines Greek leptos, 'delicate, slender', with ptilon, 'feather'. The species name comes from Latin pallidus, 'pale'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Chimbo, Ecuador.