HUNTING HORIZONS - Worldwide Hunting Seasons Database

The Eurasian Collared Dove [Streptopelia decaocto]; also Eurasian Collared-Dove or simply Collared Dove; is one of the great colonizers of the bird world although non migratory. Its original range was the warmer temperate regions from southeastern Europe to Japan; it has expanded across the rest of Europe, reaching as far west as Great Britain and Ireland, it now breeds north of the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia, has reached Spain and Portugal and is found in India, Sri Lanka and Burma. Introduced into the Bahamas it has spread to Florida; its stronghold in North America is still the Gulf Coast, but it is now found as far south as Veracruz, as far west as California, and as far north as British Columbia, the Great Lakes, and Central Saskatchewan.
LENGTH: 36 cm WEIGHT: 170 g WINGSPAN: 46 cm or greater
MALE & FEMALE: Colour is buff grey, with darker back and blue-grey under wing patch; tail feathers are tipped white and there is a black half-collar on its nape. The short legs are red and the bill is black. The iris is reddish brown, but from a distance the eyes appear to be black.
FEEDING: A gregarious species, sizable winter flocks will form where there are food supplies like grain [main food] seeds, berries, shoots and insects.
CALL: The song is a coocoo, coo repeated many times; phonetically similar to the Greek, decaocto ('eighteen'), from which its name derives. It also makes a harsh loud mechanical-sounding call lasting about 2 seconds, particularly when landing in the summer.
FLIGHT: Males have an unusual mating display of a rapid nearly vertical climb followed by a long glide downward spiral. At all other times, flight is typically direct without gliding.