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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]