Collared Doves are much neater birds than fat pigeons and very shy so these are awful photos through the window. They nearly always visit the garden in pairs.
My bird book says they are widespread and common in suburban gardens and farming areas. But have only been a British bird since arriving from south-east Europe in the 1950s. The thing to spot to know it's a collared dove is the black half collar around the neck. These are young birds as they lack the dark collar.
Turtle Doves are completely different and only summer visitors and white doves released at weddings are really variants of homing pigeons.
In my book "The Poetry of Birds" there is a poem dating from 1986 titled 'Listening to Collared Doves' by E.J. Scovell (1907 - 1999) but it's not very interesting and not about the doves at all!
No comments:
Post a Comment