Unmistakeable resident. A light coloured, lightly built, confiding dove with a collar, common to towns and villages throughout the country. It is seldom found far from Man.
The Collared Dove has probably been the most successful species of bird since records began; it is definitely so during the last 100 years since it started dispersing from its original geographical location of south eastern Asia. With its arrival and expansion through the southern half of Portugal, starting in the last decade of the 20th century, its colonization of the Western Palearctic is complete.
In 1990 I can remember having to travel over 100 kms to show this bird to a guest - and being thankful that I did not have to travel further - but within 25 years there were literally hundreds in our next door village, Santa Clara a Velha, and the species shows no sign of any reduction in numbers or location.
Although the demise of the European Turtle Dove over the last century is put down to habitat loss and hunting, the spread of the Eurasian Collared Dove must have had an impact also as where the two species share a habitat it is invariably the Collared Dove that is the more agressive of the two and it out-competes its cousin whenever food is scarce.
Joomla Gallery makes it better. Balbooa.com