Eurasian Collared-Dove

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone! Hope you are feeling really good this morning, if you were celebrating into the wee hours!

I want to wish my family and each and every one of my "local" friends, my long-time overseas friends, and my Flickr friends a very happy, healthy and safe New Year! It's hard to believe, isn't it, that 15 years have passed since all the fuss about the year 2000? Thank you all for your friendship and encouragement, and for letting me share my photos with you - SO much appreciated! I'm looking forward to another year of seeing where you have been and what beautiful things you have discovered!

This photo was taken on 23 December 2014, when I was out on the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count for Drumheller, NE of Calgary. In the residential area, we spotted a couple of these Eurasian Collared Doves and then, when we were at Jim McCabe's house for a welcome lunch of home made soup and coffee, this one flew down to a tree at the far end of his garden. It's not a very inspiring photo, but I wanted to add it to my Drumheller Bird Count album.

"These Doves are becoming more common in the rural areas south and east of Calgary, and are being seen regularly in the city as well. They seem to occupy an ecological niche between that of the Rock Pigeon and Mourning Dove. It remains to be seen if they will become a common backyard bird like the Rock Pigeon, or primarily a rural one like the Mourning Dove." By Bob Lefebvre, Calgary.

"With a flash of white tail feathers and a flurry of dark-tipped wings, the Eurasian Collared-Dove settles onto phone wires and fence posts to give its rhythmic three-parted coo. This chunky relative of the Mourning Dove gets its name from the black half-collar at the nape of the neck. A few Eurasian Collared-Doves were introduced to the Bahamas in the 1970s. They made their way to Florida by the 1980s and then rapidly colonized most of North America." From AllAboutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eurasian_Collared-Dove/id

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WHY THE CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT MATTERS

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141227-christmas...