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Re: More on Eurasian versus Ringed



Hi all,

Looks like I should say something, I have seen both species and had hard time to ID Ringed Turtle Doves (RTD) in flocks of Collared Doves (CD) in Bahrain (Persian Gulf).
First of all (both species for me are much more similar in size than in Sibley's field guide), in the field the best ID features are distinctly darker primaries of CD, contrasting nicely with tertials and upper-tail coverts. In RTD primaries are much more similar colored to tertials and uppertail. In flight contrasting pattern of CD (black inner tail contrasting with white outertail band and undertail coverts) is not always well visible. However in RTD there is similar pattern but much less distinct (outer white band is wider, dark inner tail is not so dark black and undertail coverts are somehow lighter). I would never say CD has distinctly gray, darker undertail coverts than RTD, the difference is much less obvious that shown in Sibley's guide. Some town populations of CD may have such dark undertail because of general dirt in big cities not because it is their natural color. In contrast birds (CD) seen in bright light in countryside look very much whitish undertail with strong contras to the black inner part of tail feathers (black base of the tail).
So, looking at the photo of RTD I see rather pale but definitely NOT WHITE udertail coverts. In addition the inner tail black band is distinctly black, rather wide and covers almost half of visible tail length (in RTD it shouldn't be so black and should cover ca one third of the exposed tail). Both features in my opinion are better for CD than RTD. RTD is very, very pale bird with not much of town, worm and grayish colors of CD. In that photos I see rather typical tones of CD than RTD.
I wish I could see wing photo of the bird to be sure what are we dealing with.
As far as outer tail feather pattern not all CD have distinct blackish outer webs of retrices. Some show just a hint of dark smudge with rather whitish outer edge of the feathers.
So, personally I am not sure what is this and I would rather vote for CD, but have to see the wing pattern.


Mike

Will Cook wrote:

I just switched the Ringed Turtle-Dove photo to one without the tag obscuring part of the tail - see http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/museumbirds.html

You can more clearly see that both the undertail coverts and outer webs of the retrices (tail feathers) are whitish. As I understand it, Eurasian Collared-Dove is very similar to wild-type Ringed Turtle-Dove but has darker gray undertail coverts and blackish outer webs, extending a little past the black band on the inner webs.




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