COLLARED DOVE
One of my earliest birding memories is lying in bed on our farm and listening to the collared doves cooing in the trees by my bedroom window. This is an elegant bird, mostly grey with a longish tail and a black band around the back of the neck or nape. This black band, if you look carefully, is outlined in white. They have pinky-red legs and feet, and both sexes look similar to each other.
They are a countryside and farm bird which has moved into the parks and towns of us humans. They were restricted to the far South-east of Europe a century ago, and now they are found over the whole continent. Consequently, they are a common site in most towns, although if you do not see them, you will definitely here them above your heads, in the trees or on telephone lines.
