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Eurasian Collared Dove | Streptopelia decaocto
Turkse tortel | Tórtola turca
The Eurasian Collared Dove is a pale, sandy-grey dove with a narrow black neck ring. It is not native to the Caribbean: in 1974 fewer than fifty birds escaped from captivity on New Providence in the Bahamas, and from that group and later escapes the species has spread to almost every island. From the Bahamas it also reached Florida and then nearly all of North America.
Voice
A three-part coo stressed on the middle syllable, coo-COO-coo, endlessly repeated from roofs, aerials and wires. On landing a nasal, harsh kreeh.
Recording: Jack Berteau — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
31–33 cm, slim, with a long, square-ended tail. The plumage is pale sandy grey-brown, head and breast faintly pinkish, the underparts paler. On the nape a narrow black collar with a white border. The primaries are dark grey and contrast in flight with the paler wing coverts. From below the tail is black at the base and white on the outer half; the undertail coverts are grey. The iris is dark red, the legs red. The sexes are alike; young birds lack the collar or show only a faint one.
Confusion species
African Collared Dove Streptopelia roseogrisea is very similar, but smaller and paler, creamy in tone, with white undertail coverts and less contrast between primaries and secondaries; its call is a rolling two-part coo. Zenaida Dove Zenaida aurita and Mourning Dove Z. macroura lack the collar and have small black spots on the wing; White-winged Dove Z. asiatica has a white band across the wing.
Habitat
Towns, villages, gardens, hotel grounds, harbours and airports, and open farmland with scattered trees and yards, especially where grain, feed or seeds are available. It eats seeds and grain, mostly on the ground, as well as spilt feed at farms and bird feeders. It breeds all year round, raising several broods, in a flimsy stick platform in a tree, palm or on a building.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Established and often common in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, and further in the Virgin Islands and the Lesser Antilles from Anguilla and Sint Maarten to Grenada and Barbados. Scarce in Trinidad and Tobago and recorded only a few times on Curaçao. Native to south-western and southern Asia; in the 20th century it spread across all of Europe. Feral populations live in North America and Mexico, among other places.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In almost any settlement in the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the northern Lesser Antilles, on roofs, wires and lawns. In residential areas its call is one of the most frequently heard bird sounds.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. In the Caribbean an alien that is still spreading. Whether it displaces native doves has been little studied in the region; it is most numerous in man-made landscapes, where native doves are less common.
Scientific name
Streptopelia decaocto | (Frivaldszky, 1838)
Frivaldszky described the species in 1838 as Columba decaocto; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Streptopelia was introduced in 1855 by Bonaparte. Streptopelia is Greek, from streptos 'collar, twisted chain' and peleia 'dove', after the dark neck collar of these doves. decaocto is Greek for 'eighteen', from deka 'ten' and oktō 'eight', a traditional rendering of the call; in a Greek tale a maid who earned only eighteen coins a year was turned into this dove. The specimen the first description was based on came from Turkey.