African Collared Dove In Israel?

[Yoav]

Another interesting bird from the WP ID frontiers :puzzled:
A recent observation from the Hula of a possible African Collared Dove opened a pandora box:

http://www.israbirding.com/israelbirdsforum/forum_entry.php?id=1192

[Seedy Saidy]

Hi Itai,

Interesting photos there. Any way am not an expert, but my opinion from the first photo, saws some white edge marking around the black band on the neck and redish looking eye. Any way, if the location was Gambia I will not hesitate to identify the Dove as African Mourning. As I mention not an expert. Definitely not a laughing Dove.

Thanks.

Seedy Gambian Birder.

[LeeEvans]

Is this bird not a European Turtle Dove? Again, relatively poor images but it certainly doesn't look much like an African Collared Dove in any of the shots to me.

[appleton.dave]

Is this bird not a European Turtle Dove? Again, relatively poor images but it certainly doesn't look much like an African Collared Dove in any of the shots to me.

Lee, do you mean European Turtle Dove? I guess you meant European Collared Dove but please explain if not - I can't put the very plain-looking upperparts entirely down to the photographic quality, not to mention a few other details that would be surprising for Turtle Dove.

[Colin Key]

European Collared Doves show a considerable variation in both size and plumage colouration (I am surrounded by the damned things and currently have 200+ roosting in a stand of pines next to my house).

From these poor images taken in very challenging lighting conditions it would be very difficult to say that this bird is not a S. decaocto. Certainly not a Turtle Dove.

Colin

[Paul French]

I've added some pictures of doves taken in Eilat in spring 2004. Comments welcome!

http://www.israbirding.com/israelbirdsforum/forum_entry.php?id=1254&page=0&order=time&descasc=DESC&category=0

[Howard King]

A lot of fuss about nothing - just a Collared Dove well within the hugh variance one sees in any large flock

[Yoav]

Hmmm... I agree that this recent Hula bird probably shows features within the variation of Eurasian Collared Dove. But if you have the energy to read through the long but interesting thread in israbirding.com forum, you will see that most probaly African Collared Dove of the arabica form of Arabia and NE Africa is unidentifiable without vocalisations, and that separating African and Eurasian Collared Doves in the WP is far from straightforward. This actually sheds a different light on all previous accepted records in Israel.