White-winged Dove | Zenaida asiatica

Voice

A rhythmic, somewhat husky coo of four or five syllables, hoo-cook-hoo-coo, often heard in chorus from trees and palms. Also a drawn-out hoo-hoo-hooo. On take-off the wings clatter loudly.

Identification

26–31 cm. A sturdy dove with a fairly short, rounded tail. The upperparts are grey-brown, the head and breast paler greyish buff. A broad white stripe runs along the folded wing, forming a striking white band across the wing in flight against the dark primaries. A small black streak below the eye. The eye is orange-red, surrounded by bare blue skin; the legs are red. The tail is grey with a black band and broad white corners. The male has a bronze-green to purple gloss on the sides of the neck, the female is duller.

Confusion species

Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura is slimmer, with a long, pointed tail, black spots on the wing and no white wing band. Zenaida Dove Zenaida aurita has only a narrow white trailing edge to the secondaries. Eurasian Collared-Dove Streptopelia decaocto, an introduced species, is paler sandy, with a black hind collar and no white in the wing. Rock Pigeon Columba livia has a white or grey rump and black wing bars.

Habitat

Dry and semi-arid country: thorn scrub and cactus forest, dry forest, desert with columnar cacti, gallery forest, fields and pasture with trees, villages and towns; from sea level to about 2000 m. Flies in flocks to fields and watering places. Eats seeds, grain and fruit; in the Sonoran Desert in summer much nectar and fruit of columnar cacti. Often breeds in loose colonies; the nest is a flimsy platform of twigs in a tree or shrub.

Range and movements

Almost throughout Mexico, including Baja California, the Islas Marías and the Yucatán Peninsula, except the highest parts of the mountains and the interior of humid forest. Further along the dry Pacific side and in dry interior valleys of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, in Belize mainly along the coast, in north-western Costa Rica, and for some decades also in the Central Valley of Costa Rica and on the Pacific side of Panama (Z. a. australis). Outside the guide area in the southern United States, the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles. Northern birds move south in winter, as far as Central America.

• Resident
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

How and when to look

In northern and western Mexico often in flocks on power lines along roads and in parks. In Costa Rica common in Guanacaste and nowadays also in the middle of San José. The white wing band is visible from afar in flight.

Conservation status

Not threatened. Common to very common; the species benefits from irrigated farming, deforestation and urbanization and is expanding its range. In Mexico an important game bird.

Scientific name

Zenaida asiatica | (Linnaeus, 1758)

Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Columba asiatica; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Zenaida was introduced in 1838 by Bonaparte. Zenaida honours Zénaïde Bonaparte (1801–1854), wife of the French ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who named the genus in 1838. asiatica is Latin for 'Asian': Linnaeus wrongly believed the bird came from the Indies. The specimen the first description was based on came from Jamaica.