Beach pigeons

In my recent holidays, it wasn't only the local Carrion Crows that visited the beach at low tide, Woodpigeons and Collared Doves regularly popped in. The first day I noticed a Collared dove on the sea defences pecking on something, when I looked closer I realised it was eating seaweed (Fucus spiralis, I believe), something I hadn't seen a bird do before.

Collared Dove enjoying some seaweed on the sea defences, as they do.

I took a video the following day.


In subsequent days I watched the visiting woodpigeons, which were keen beachcombers...

...but when a female landed on the beach, a male keenly followed her courting.

As the collared doves, they also ate seaweed, drank seawater (!) and waded in the waves. Don't take my word for it and watch the following clip.

Collared Dove exhibition flight

Collared Doves have a extraordinary behaviour, their display flight. As males incubate during the day - between 10 am and 4 pm -, and females by night, males are most vocal and active advertising their territory in the early morning and in the evening. Males call their repeated three-note phrase from a prominent perch an aerial or a tree top in the vicinity of their nest. At the end of their call they pause and then launch themselves into a display of pure flight power: climbing almost vertically up to 10 m into the sky, and then gliding down in a broad, long spiral, with wings kept spread pointing downwards, and tail fanned, to finish in the same or nearby spot, sometimes calling a mute trumpet-like landing call. The wing flaps make a soft whistling noise. This sequence can be repeated several times in the early morning and evening. This morning I watched this male sitting on a church top calling, and managed to get the initial jump of the perch into his display flight.

You can watch a slow motion clip of the display flight by redjered here

Collared dove fledgling

The other day I watched a Collared Dove attacking a Woodpigeon. I was a bit puzzled by this bit of seemingly random aggression, as the Woodpigeon was on its way to drink.

The following day in the same spot, a Collared Dove sat on a branch, quite low and I thought that the Collared Dove's puzzling behaviour might have to do with it's nest being nearby.

 This morning I thought that the Collared Dove was sitting in the same spot, but when I approached I noticed the fuzzy fluff and less pink plumage of a fledgling. Completely unafraid of me, it looked curious as I took its portrait.

This is the third pigeon species that I have seen fledglings this year, the first one was a Feral Pigeon, then a Woodpigeon last week. Not wasting any time!

Four calling pigeons

I had this little project in my mind for a long time, to get photos of all four local pigeon species as they call. What I had not anticipated was that I would do in in a single day in the space of 15 minutes, all in a very small area. All pigeons are now in full blown song and courtship. When I spotted the Woodpigeon above, he wasn't calling, it appeared to be just enjoying the sun, but as I walked away, I heard it calling and I turned back. The noise of the roadworks didn't stop it calling.

It is unusual to see a Collared Dove calling in the park.

Not much further away, a Stock Dove started calling. This ash is their favourite tree, and most of the time there are two or three there. Stock doves are quite timid, and they call from high vantage points.

To end the series, it wasn't too hard to find the courting Feral Pigeons, there were plenty around. This male and watchful female were on the roof of the cafe at Pearson Park. 

Coo coo!

I have been wanting to get this shot for a while, and I managed it this afternoon. A singing Collared Dove, throat puffed out, with the low sun of the winter afternoon lighting it from underneath, doing its repeated, three-syllable coo from an aerial, their favourite singing perch.
 I photographed two cooing pigeons today, as the Stock Doves in my local park are also very vocal, although much more coy than the collared dove, I couldn't manage a nice shot, but like how the iridescent patch in the neck spreads out, making feather stripes which are not very visible on the resting bird.

The song of the Stock dove is also cooing, but lower, bisylabic and full of effort, and lacks the purring quality of the domestic pigeon. Given how shy and unobtrusive these doves are, learning to identify their call is the best way to spot them.

Here is a nice recording from Volker Arnold in Germany:

Collared dove

Just a quick portrait post, with this collared dove portrait taken this summer in Pearson Park Wildlife Garden.

Frisky Pigeons

All of January, Collared Doves have been playing their the three note song in a repetitive, mesmerizing soundtrack. Outside, display flights, in which the doves fly across the street of over roofs with wings held low as they descend, indicate that Collared Doves are starting to gear up for the breeding season.

Woodpigeons too. In fact, they seem to not have stopped breeding. In early November, I watched a fledgling begging for food in the park (above), and yesterday, I saw an immature with no signs of white feathers, feeding on the grass (below). The individual on the top shot appears to be a young pigeon growing its neck and head feathers.

Today, in the lime tree just outside my house a male Woodpigeon nest-called persistently while the female checked a pile of loose sticks on the first fork of the tree.

Even the Stock Doves, a normally quite discreet bird, also showed a lot of exuberant activity in the park. High flights, chases, courting and persistent song. A male tried to approach a female on a brach and she flew off (below).

The - so far - mild winter might be fooling them into an early breeding season.

January Chorus

There are a surprisingly high number of bird species that start singing in January. A handful of species can pretty much sing all through the winter: Robins, Collared Doves, Woodpigeons and, surprisingly, Great Tits and Blue Tits. Some mild winters the Song Thrush will join them. Although the days are still cold and short, light levels are increasing by the day and this set birds into 'get ready for breeding' mood. One after the other birds join the chorus.
 In the last two weeks, Coal Tits, Song Thrushes, Stock Doves, Starlings (above), Dunnocks, Goldfinches and Chaffinches have, ones boldly, others more tentatively, taken positions and started to practice their singing. Even Sparrows sitting under the eaves have been doing their chirping.

Robin singing

Song Thrush

Collared Doves, the great colonisers

The thaw is quickly underway but there is still thick snow over the garden. I look out and there is a couple of Collared Doves resting on the apple tree. One of them, after carefully looking around jumps to the bird table to eat. The Collared Dove is a classic example of a species undergoing a range expansion. Although this expansion was achieved naturally, availability of grain due to agriculture undoubtedly played a role in facilitating it and in this species is strongly associated to cities, towns and agricultural land, and can be considered a human commensal species. Its original range was apparently India; by the sixteenth century it had reached Turkey and then, during the twentieth century, a rapid European invasion took place up to the point that now it has virtually colonized available areas over the whole continent. It is nowadays such a common urban bird that it is hard to believe that in the UK, the Collared Dove was first recorded breeding in Norfolk in 1955 (according to the British Trust for Ornithology the population estimate is over half a million pairs).

Reference: Hengeveld R. (1988) Mechanisms of biological invasions. Journal of Biogeography, 15: 819-828.