A pair of these monogamous birds live around our garden, and their cooing is a welcome addition to the local soundtrack. I don’t know where their nest is, but Collared Doves do generally nest close to human habitation. The male incubates the eggs during the day, and the female at night, and this sharing of parental duties continues when the eggs hatch. Three to four broods a year is normal, but there have been instances of six! Sometimes these broods overlap, in the sense that the female takes breaks from incubating eggs in a second nest to feed recently fledged young who are not yet independent. Originally only resident in warm areas of Asia, the Collared Dove has been described as “one of the greatest colonisers of the bird world”, and now occupies many cooler places, arriving in the UK in the 1950’s. Young birds have been recorded travelling 600km from their birthplace. Apparently Collared Doves have very dusty feathers and when they fly into windows leave a highly-detailed print of individual feathers, beak and even eyelids.
Photos by Pixabay
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