Another Non-Native Bird: Eurasian Collared-Dove

You’re likely familiar with the three most common non-native birds in North America, the House Sparrow, European Starling, and Rock Pigeon. Here in Pennsylvania, you might not have heard of the Eurasian Collared-Dove. They look a bit like a Mourning Dove, but they’re larger, lighter in color, and don’t have the long, pointed tail of our native dove. They get their name from the black feathers that look like half of a collar around the back of their neck. Like other non-native birds, there is concern that Eurasian Collared-Doves could have a negative impact on North America’s native birds, especially other doves like Mourning Doves and White-winged Doves.

A hundred years ago, Eurasian Collared-Doves were found across most of southern Asia, and as far west as the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. Then, starting in the 1930s, these doves rapidly spread across Europe and northern Africa, adapting to the open habitats and abundant food produced by industrialized agriculture. In 1974, a few Eurasian Collared-Doves escaped a pet store in the Bahamas during an attempted burglary. The owner of the shop eventually released the remaining doves, about 50 birds. In only a few short decades, that small population of released pets increased and spread across the islands of the Caribbean Sea, throughout Central America and Mexico, and across most of the United States. You can now find them nesting as far north as Alaska.

Despite such a remarkable range expansion, Eurasian Collared-Doves remain scarce in Pennsylvania, as well as much of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. If you want to see one in our state, your best bet is to visit an established population near Greencastle in southern Franklin County, near the Maryland border. I usually see them each year in the small town of Shartlesville in northern Berks County, just off Interstate 78.