Turkish dove

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Turkish dove
Shrimp dove in flight when building a nest The call of the shrimp dove consists of six groups of three

Collared dove in flight while building a nest

The call of the turkish dove consists of six groups of three
Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Pigeon birds (Columbiformes)
Family : Pigeons (Columbidae)
Genre : Lovebirds ( streptopelia )
Type : Turkish dove
Scientific name
Streptopelia decaocto
( Frivaldszky , 1838)

The collared dove ( Streptopelia decaocto ) is a bird art from the family of pigeons (Columbidae). It got its name because the species has only migrated from the southeast to central and now to northern and western Europe since the 1930s.

features

The black neck stripe is a clear distinguishing feature of the Turkish pigeon

The turkish dove is 31 to 33 cm long and therefore about the same size as the city ​​dove . However, it is lighter and has a longer tail, making it look slimmer and more delicate. Their wingspan is 47 to 55 cm; it weighs 150 to 200 grams. The plumage is uniformly light beige-brown, the wing tips are a little darker, the head and underside a little lighter. The reddish eye has a narrow white eye ring. The most striking feature is a deep black neck stripe in the adult plumage, which is also framed by a narrow white stripe. The sexes are alike.

habitat

Turkish pigeons use cities as living space
Young turkish dove, still without neck stripes

Turkish pigeons are culture followers . They originally come from Asia, but since they found an ever better food supply in northern parts of Europe due to agricultural and household waste, they expanded across Europe in the course of the 20th century. They are now advancing northeast. Their advance in the middle of the 20th century could be observed and recorded in detail. They have now established themselves as resident birds and live in parks and gardens , always in the vicinity of settlements , preferably in quiet residential areas with a few conifers . They need the latter because they prefer to breed in conifers. You are not very shy.

Spread in the 20th century

The original range of the turkish dove reached from European Turkey to Japan (it is the heraldic animal of the Japanese prefecture Saitama ).

In the 1930s the Turkish pigeons began to spread spectacularly to Europe. They reached Vienna in 1943 , the Netherlands in 1949 , Belgium , Sweden and Alsace in 1950 . In 1956 the first pair of Turkish pigeons was observed in the British county of Norfolk . Already in 1960 there were broods in Scotland, Wales and Ireland and in 1966 broods in every British county. They spread further to the west and east, in some areas also to the north; however, the speed of advance has slowed significantly, and many of the suboptimal breeding habitats have been cleared again. Since the pigeon is huntable game in some states, shooting as a population-limiting factor also plays a role. They were accidentally introduced into the Bahamas in 1970 and colonized Florida from there in 1982. By 1999 they were found in 22 states in the USA and they are still spreading.

The northwest expansion

The spread of the species since 1900

The earlier explanatory approach of population- dependent dismigration of the pigeon is increasingly being dropped in favor of a genetic explanation. Evaluations of historical sources showed a fairly small population for the beginning of the expansion in the source areas of the species in Asia Minor, in some cases it is even referred to as a population collapse. Within this population, the tendency to further dismigration seems to have been disproportionately high, especially in the northwest direction. These traits became increasingly established as animals with these genetic dispositions mated more and more frequently. This gene drift hypothesis is mainly supported by the following facts:

  • The expansion was continuous and not in waves. That is, the expansion front advanced before all suitable habitats were settled and the new populations had reached a certain density.
  • The direction was north-west throughout and was maintained in the British Isles even after reaching the North Sea and skipping the English Channel.
  • Nevertheless, reaching the North Sea (and later the Baltic Sea) means a disadvantage for the genetically determined north-west migrants, which leads to the relatively rapid elimination of the carriers of this disposition, to undirected dispersion and to a slowing down of the spread.

nutrition

Turkish pigeons feed on seeds , grains and fruits .

Brood care

Gelege, Museum Wiesbaden collection

Like most pigeons, their nest is poor, consists of only a few stalks and twigs and is usually built high up in trees. 1–2 eggs are hatched. The young hatch after 13 or 14 days. Turkish pigeons often breed several times in a row, as they often have high rates of loss from predators (predators) ( cats , magpies , jays or squirrels ). Young birds lack the black neck ring.

Hunting and stock

The species is hunted in many countries. In Germany, the Turkish pigeon is one of the two types of pigeons that can be hunted, alongside the wood pigeon, and can be shot from November 1st to February 20th. In Berlin, Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland, the Turkish pigeon is protected all year round (as of 2017). Hunting is suspended in Hesse from 2016 to December 31, 2019. In North Rhine-Westphalia it was completely removed from the list of huntable species with the Ecological Hunting Act 2015. The population in this state with around 18,500 to 36,000 breeding grounds makes up around 17 percent of the total German population and is the second largest occurrence of the species after Bavaria. Between 2013 and 2015, around 3,500 Turkish pigeons were shot annually in NRW. The hunting range in Bavaria was around 2,000 birds annually from 2013 to 2016.

The population for Switzerland is estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 breeding pairs. The Swiss hunting route for this species has been extremely irregular over the past 15 years, fluctuating between 80 and 760 animals. In 2014 and 2015 it was 280 Turkish pigeons. The canton of Zurich had a share of 65 percent. The population here is estimated at 1,500 breeding pairs.

The Austrian hunting route in the 2015/16 hunting year was 15,350 wild pigeons. In some states also are out of collared doves and wood pigeons turtledoves hunted. A differentiation of the species in the hunting statistics is not made, so it is worthless for a population determination. The only state in which the Turkish pigeon is not hunted is Tyrol .

literature

  • E. Stresemann : Further advance of the Turkish pigeon. In: J. Orn. 93, 1951, pp. 26-31.
  • M. Kasparek: Dismigration and brood area expansion of the Turkish pigeon (Streptopelia decaocto). In: J. Orn. 137, 1996, pp. 1-33.
  • J. Hölzinger , U. Mahler: The birds of Baden-Württemberg. Non-songbirds 3. Ulmer 2001, ISBN 978-3-8001-3908-8 , pp. 48-65.

Web links

Commons : Collared Dove ( Streptopelia decaocto )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Moss: Birds Britannia. HarperCollins Publisher, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-00-741344-7 , p. 49.
  2. ↑ NABU : Die Türkentaube , accessed on August 5, 2017
  3. ↑ Wildtierportal Bayern: Türkentaube , accessed on August 5, 2017
  4. ↑ BirdLife Zurich: Türkentaube , accessed on August 5, 2017