Tourist season is upon us again.\u00a0 On May 28, Maine hosted a visit by a Eurasian Collared-Dove.\u00a0 This bird showed up at a feeder in Falmouth.\u00a0 It represents the first \u00a0record of the species in the state of Maine.\u00a0 Alas, this tourist did not tarry and was not seen subsequently.<\/p>\n
From the picture taken by Doug Hitchcox, you can see this dove is a striking bird with a sandy-gray plumage and a distinct black band, edged with white, across the nape. \u00a0The tail is squared off rather than pointed like the tail of a Mourning Dove. \u00a0The call (koo-KOO-kook, with the second syllable accented) is distinctive.<\/p>\n
As the name suggests, Eurasian Collared-Doves are not native to North America.\u00a0 The arrival of the species in Maine is a long story with a few interesting twists.<\/p>\n
Eurasian Collared-Doves were originally native only to India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar (formerly, Burma) where they typically occur in open, dry areas often associated with agricultural areas.\u00a0 Now they are found over much of Europe and Asia, having expanded east to China and west to Portugal.\u00a0 We know quite a bit about the pattern of colonization of the species in Eurasia.<\/p>\n
In the 1600\u2019s, these birds expanded into Turkey and the Balkans.\u00a0 We do not know if the birds naturally dispersed westward or if they were introduced by humans.\u00a0 They continued to spread westward in Europe, reaching Yugoslavia by 1912, Hungary by 1930, Germany by 1945, Norway by 1954, Britain in by 1955 and Portugal by 1974.<\/p>\n
The expansion of Eurasian Collared-Doves into Europe has been described as explosive.\u00a0 As long as birds have access to food from bird feeders or from gleaned seeds from pastures and grain fields, they can tolerate fairly cold weather.\u00a0 Areas where the annual average low temperature is below 32 degrees are too harsh for these birds.<\/p>\n
These doves occur now in the Western Hemisphere as well, although in a patchwork pattern. The introduction into our hemisphere can be traced back to two events.\u00a0 In the mid-1970\u2019s, a breeder brought Eurasian Collared-Doves to New Providence, Bahamas.\u00a0 A few birds were released during a burglary and the breeder subsequently released the rest of his breeding stock of 50 birds.<\/p>\n
A second release occurred on Guadaloupe in 1976.\u00a0 It is clear that the populations now established elsewhere in the Caribbean and in much of North America stemmed from these two introductions.<\/p>\n
The first of these doves to reach North America arrived in south Florida.\u00a0 Confirmed records were obtained in 1986 although there were reports of collared doves of some ilk in south Florida over a decade earlier.<\/p>\n
By the late 1980\u2019s, Eurasian Collared-Doves were reported from several Florida counties in the northern part of that state, Georgia and Arkansas.\u00a0 From that point onward, the expansion has been explosive, similar to the colonization of Europe.<\/p>\n
Breeding populations are now established in all the southeastern states along with California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Texas.\u00a0 Records of stragglers have been reported as far north as Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan.\u00a0 The Maine bird falls into this category.<\/p>\n
As with the European invaders, North American Eurasian Collared-Doves are strongly associated with humans.\u00a0 Suburban gardens, town parks and areas with mixed shrubs and trees provide favored habitat.\u00a0 They tend to avoid urban centers and woodlands.\u00a0 Coastal areas, particularly with mixed habitats of scrubland, pastures, and grain fields, host the largest populations.\u00a0 These doves avoid areas of intensive farming.<\/p>\n
The patchy distribution of established populations results from a phenomenon called jump-dispersal.\u00a0 Collard-doves will disperse long distances, establish a new breeding population, and then fill in the area between.\u00a0 We can expect a more continuous distribution of these birds as jump-dispersal continues.\u00a0 The cold temperatures in Maine may keep the species from becoming an established member of our avifauna.\u00a0 We\u2019ll have to wait and see.<\/p>\n
[First published on June 9, 2013]<\/p>\n\n
Tourist season is upon us again.\u00a0 On May 28, Maine hosted a visit by a Eurasian Collared-Dove.\u00a0 This bird showed up at a feeder in Falmouth.\u00a0 It represents the first \u00a0record of the species in the state of Maine.\u00a0 Alas, this tourist did not tarry and was not seen subsequently. From the picture taken by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[420],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}