Spotted Dove

The spotted dove is a slender, long-tailed pigeon about 28–32 cm long. It is warm buff-brown with fine darker markings, pale spots on the wing coverts and white tail tips. The defining feature is a black patch on the rear and sides of the neck covered with small white spots, creating a lace-like collar. Sexes are similar, and the call is a soft repeated series of coos (Wikipedia, general species account).

A common resident from the Indian subcontinent through East and Southeast Asia, it uses open woodland, scrub, farmland, gardens and cities and readily feeds on the ground. Its diet is dominated by grass seeds and grain, with fallen fruit and occasional invertebrates. A flimsy twig platform is built in a tree, shrub or on a structure. Both parents incubate the usual two white eggs for roughly 13–15 days and feed the chicks crop milk (Wikipedia, general species account).