Birders interested in the origins of Eurasian Collared-Doves in North
America will find a thorough discussion in an article by P. William Smith,
published 30 years ago (1987) in American Birds magazine. It's a long
article, but well worth reading for the detailed discussion of this species
and related forms and the history of their range expansions in other part
of the world. The article is available online at this link:
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v041n05/p01371-p01380.pdf

Briefly, the Eurasian Collared-Dove got its start in the western hemisphere
at Nassau, New Providence Island, Bahamas, in the mid 1970s. A pet store
owner there had tried breeding the species, but after some of his birds
escaped during a burglary attempt, he released the rest. This initial flock
probably numbered no more than 50 birds, but the birds reproduced so
rapidly that they soon became abundant on New Providence and began to
spread through the Bahamas. The Bahamian population undoubtedly was the
source for the invasion of Florida, which was well under way by the mid
1980s, although the significance of the birds' presence wasn't recognized
right away.

I have a personal history of a near miss with this species. In May 1985,
friends and I were driving up the Florida Keys, and we paused to look at
some "Ringed Turtle-Doves" that had been reported. When we saw the birds we
were struck by the fact that they looked darker and more robust than other
populations of feral Ringed Turtle-Doves that we'd seen, but we had no
references along that would have shed any light on our questions. By the
time we went home and started consulting our libraries, we learned that
another friend, Tony White, had correctly identified the birds as Eurasian
Collared-Doves. And it was around that time that P. William Smith started
the thorough research that led to the article linked above.

In an earlier post on Ohio-Birds, Bill Whan mentioned that the dispersal of
the species had been strongly westward, rather than northward. It's
interesting that Smith made this point in 1987, when the invasion was just
beginning. He wrote: "Because dispersal is primarily westward, it may take
a few more years before the species breaks out of the Florida peninsula.
However, expansion then might occur rapidly." It certainly did. Check out
this eBird map for a quick look at just how widespread the Eurasian
Collared-Dove has become. Among other things, the map also shows how the
species is still curiously scarce or missing in northeastern North America:
  http://bit.ly/2l9M2hR  -

Kenn Kaufman
Oak Harbor, Ohio

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