Telling an ECD from Ohio's other wild doves is not difficult, but eliminating the ringed turtle-dove is. Turtle-doves are common cage birds (in the trade called ring-necked doves), the species released at weddings, etc. They come in many color morphs, some of which closely resemble Eurasian collared-doves. See http://www.dovepage.com/species/domestic/Ringneck/ringneckcolorlist.html They are smaller and slimmer, but you don't often see them together to make this comparison. I have seen individuals in Ohio that took close study to separate visually. Dark folded primaries are not diagnostic for ECD. The best way to differentiate the two is via the undertail; they can overlap in almost all other respects. In the turtle-dove the undertail coverts are as pale as or even paler than the rest of the underparts. The inner parts of the tail feathers are dark, but this dark area ends well short of the coverts, almost hidden in the folded tail. In the Eurasian collared-dove, the undertail coverts are gray. The dark bases of the tail feathers are longer, extending almost to the end of the coverts, plus on the outer webs of the outer tail feathers, there is a dark "spike" or extension: see http://www.internationaldovesociety.com/Seedeaterspics/Eye-feather/ECDTailSpikes.jpg The spikes are not hidden in the folded tail, and usually easy to make out, especially on a favored perch like a utility wire. Joe Hammond wrote a good article on this and other challenges for the Summer 2000 issue of the Ohio Cardinal. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]