Eurasian Collared Dove

[urbpan]

Backstory: someone posted a picture of two exotic doves on the back porch of their Bozeman Montana home in birdlovers. The reply came: those are not feral birds, those are escaped pets. I tended to agree (thankfully, not in print, until now). Bozeman is nice (in the summer), but settling there strikes me as an eccentric decision, for a bird or for David Quammen.

...

The Eurasian Collared Dove is a bird originally native to India or thereabouts, that has been semi-domesticated for hundreds of years. People keep them as caged pets, or sometimes uncaged pets, which is why they didn't stay just in India very long (once people started moving around and selling caged birds to one another). If you read North American bird guides, they'll tell you that a feral population in the Bahamas has spread to Florida, so they are listed in the "exotics" parts of the guides.

However, if you look at current data:


Holy cow. This is from the Great Backyard Bird Count. Not only could you see them in Bozeman, but apparently also in Seattle, Denver, and even Calgary. Well, that shows the importance of citizen science. Not that the current range of the Eurasian collard dove is the most critical thing to know, but since they only update field guides about once per generation, this is pretty dramatic. I wonder if the ec dove found a niche in the vacancy left by the passenger pigeon, or if it's just taking advantage of human changes to the landscape. And what does it have against the Northeast?

Comments

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

...And the English sparrow is native to the Mediterranean originally.

It's interesting how birds spread. In New England, tufted titmice, cardinals, and mockingbirds are all considered native, but they didn't appear there until the 20th century.

Spread?

[gythiawulfie.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can get a picture of the FLOCK that tends to ravage my bird feeder every so often. We call them morning doves, and I see by googling its a common name.

We EASILY see hundreds of them at a time here in Florida.

Yeah.....

Re: Spread?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. It sounds like it might be an eggcorn derived from "mourning dove."

And may in fact be.

[grrlpup]

They are starting to crowd out the mourning doves in my hometown in Colorado; distressing for me, as I love hearing mourning doves.

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

I imagine here in the northeast, the pigeons are just too vicious to let them in on their territory.

[harebell.livejournal.com]

They are year round residents of my backyard, roosting in the dead branches of an old elm tree. I really love them. I love the sounds that they make and their shy, awkward attitude.
They are definitely spreading to other towns around here in Colorado; I see them more and more often.

[deathling.livejournal.com]

I just came from florida where the was a shitload of them, and there seemed to be just as many mourning doves.
I went to an area in Florida about 13 years ago that was nearby where I visited this time, and don't remember seeing any.

A bird field guide I got down there said their range is expanding rapidly, even into the northern states. They can definitely handle colder climates because they are also found all over England.

Although I do have to say, I did have a pet dove that resembled the bird very closely. I got it at a flea market(I think they were selling them for target practice) so I never found out what type of bird it was. One of the major differences between my pet and the wild birds was it's call.





I haven't seen any here in Maryland yet either, which is a shame.

[tsunami-ryuu.livejournal.com]

Wow! They're spreading more than I ever thought.

I'm in St. Louis, and according to one of my coworkers at songbird rehab, she's got a collared dove that's been visiting her feeder for years.

[gardenfey.livejournal.com]

On a completely unrelated note, did you see this: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4551368/12188085?