white-tipped or gray-fronted? (1 Viewer)

I am having trouble identifying a dove.It is either the white-tipped dove(leptotila verreauxi) or the gray-fronted dove(leptotila rufaxilla). I have seen it several times, but they are extremely shy, flying away before I even know they are there. My fieldguide says that the gray-fronted has spots on its wings, but the white-tipped dove doesn't. I don't know what it means by spots on its wings, and I haven't ever been able to see it good enough to find out. I hope someone can help me.

I do not have internet access at home so I don't have access to my books right now. However, my memory of these species is that they are best identified by the colour of the crown and nape (but I can't remember the exact colours of the two species right now). Generally Leptotila doves are difficult to approach closely, but if you walk trails slowly and check before going around any bends in the path, you can generally get quite good views. They tend to walk off the path when they see you, but if they are not disturbed they will often walk back onto the path and continue feeding. You can also see the nape colour as they walk away. If my memory serves me right, the grey-fronted has less white on the tips of its tail, but I have always found this a difficult thing to judge in Leptotilas. I can't remember anything about wing spots, but I will check my field guides when I get home today.
Tom

The best way to id those two species from each other (at least in most of South America incl. Guyana, exceptions occur in other subspecies) is to look at the crown and the orbital skin (bare skin around the eye)

White-tipped: Colour of crown rather similar to chest-colour (note that there is a white area over the bill in both species). Orbital skin light blue. Prefer drier areas than Grey-crowned. Also occurs in rather open area (which Grey-crowned very rarely does). The white tail tips are slightly larger in this species than the following, but this is hard to actually see in the field.

Grey-crowned: Crown grey. Orbital skin red. In general this species is also a warmer colour overall, but for using that, you need to have experiance with both species.
Minor correction: Of course I ment Grey-fronted NOT Grey-crowned.

I have seen both species often, and have *NEVER* noted any spots on the wings. Perhaps they ment the white tail-edges?

Voices of the two are quite different.

Thanks for all the tips. I will try to be careful when birdwatching to look out for it. The pictures in my fieldguide don't have spots on the wings either.

Rasmus,
Now I know why I got mixed up. I was looking at the thread and looking through my photoarchive at pics of verreauxi having red perioculars (the other race you mentioned I guess) and comparing them to the rufaxilla pics. One thing - verreauxi seems generally greyer overall and rufaxilla more kind of beige brown with wings a darker brown.

Indeed Steve, that difference in overall colouration is what I tried (perhaps somewhat inadequately) to describe as: "In general this species [Grey-fronted] is also a warmer colour overall..."
- And just to clear it up for everybody else who may be a bit confused about what is ment by "the other race" in the above email. It is due to a private exchange of emails between Steve and myself. The "other race" is decolor; a subspecies of White-tipped Dove found west of the Andes in South America. This ssp. is noted for having red ocular skin. Likewise, individuals in SE Brazil can have red ocular skin, as do most in Central America. However, that has nothing to do with most of its range in South America where it still is useful.