Hello, Birders. Here are some tips on recognizing African Collared-Doves in Colorado.
First, here is a photo of an African Collared-Dove from Lafayette, Boulder County, this morning, Thurs., Oct, 23: http://tinyurl.com/AfCD-Colo Such a bird could very easily be written off as a standard-issue Eurasian Collared-Dove. Although many "domestic" African Collared-Doves are distinctively pale, many "wild types" are as dark as Eurasians. The best field mark is the under-tail. From below, the entire tail complex (rectrices plus coverts) is uniformly pale on African Collared-Dove, distinct from the high-contrast under-tail pattern of the Eurasian Collared-Dove. This photo of the same African Collared-Dove as depicted above shows the uniformly pale under-tail region: http://tinyurl.com/AfCD-Colo-ventral More important than visual differences are aural differences, and, fortunately, *Streptopelia* doves are noisy throughout the year. The most obvious difference is in song. Here is the song of the same African Collared-Dove as discussed above: https://soundcloud.com/ted-floyd/african-collared-dove Sorry, my neighborhood is noisy, and the bird wasn't particularly close when I made this recording. And here is the song of a Eurasian Collared-Dove, also singing in the distance this morning in my noisy neighborhood: https://soundcloud.com/ted-floyd/eurasian-collared-dove In this recent post to COBirds, Nathan Pieplow neatly summarizes the differences in vocalizations between African and Eurasian collared-doves: http://tinyurl.com/Pieplow-Streptopelia Nathan mentions the African's descending cackle, distinct from the Eurasian's monosyllabic groan or sigh. In this video of our African Collared-Dove from Lafayette, you can hear that cackle as the bird lands on a fence: http://tinyurl.com/AfCD-Colo-video This video is instructive in other regards. First, note the bird's wing whistle. Can the wing-whistle of the African Collared-Dove be separated from that of the Eurasian Collared-Dove?--I think that's something for us to work out. Second, you might very briefly glimpse a second bird in this video: a much paler bird, one that matches the "fawn-colored variant adult" in *The Sibley Guide*. I have seen birds like this around Lafayette. I think these should be entered into eBird as "African Collared-Dove (Domestic type or Ringed Turtle-Dove)." However, I believe that the "wild type" individuals should be entered as "African Collared-Dove." African Collared-Doves and their genes are here. Let's get out there and figure out how extensive this phenomenon is in Colorado! Ted Floyd Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/96701be9-a084-4f36-bf17-f8bc8672d3aa%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
