[mou] Collared Dove-Marietta

[Dennis/Barbara Martin]

Found a single Eurasian Collared-dove in Marietta today.  Bird was on a wire
one half block south of the American Legion.

This was a typical bird.  Larger than Mourning Dove,  medium gray all over,
with a white bottom to the square tail and black outer tail feathers on the
bottom side of the tail.  When identifying these birds you need to see all
of these features and others shown in the field guides to avoid confusion
with Ringed Turtle Doves.  Someone said the other day that RTDs are always
white.  That is not true.  We have seen an RTD that was not the bright white
bird that we have observed in captivity.  While this bird was definately
lighter that the typical ECD it was not white at all.

Also it does not make sense to us to differentiate between birds likely to
be seen in the larger metro areas and the birds that are starting to slowly
populate all the counties in western Minnesota.  Birds fly.  That is the
part that makes this so interesting.  You never know where a species will
show up next.

A larger concern will be hybrids.  The latest issue of North American Birds
has a photograph of a hybrid Mourning/Eurasian Collared-dove from
Memphis,Tennessee.  While this particular photograph is hard to get a great
idea of all the id marks it is important to remember that hybrids can draw
just about any of their traits from either parent.

Anyone know if hunters can shoot ECDs also?  And also if there is not a
season on ECDs can we charge a hunter who shoots a hybrid or a ECD with
breaking the law?  You know the DNR enforcement officers won't do anything
about this as they won't know the ID marks.

Dennis and Barbara Martin
dbmartin@skypoint.com