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Ethiopia: Gambela area - mourning dove subspecies? (1 Viewer)

jstanleyg

Well-known member
Every one of these doves seen in the Gambela area lacked the red skin around the eye. Is there a subspecies of mourning dove?
 

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I'm pretty sure it is not a Mourning Dove, which is an North American species. Maybe African Collared?

Edit: actually where was this found? I'm confused, the OP's location is shown as Addis Ababa, hence the guess of an African bird.
 
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Not an African Collared Dove [Streptopelia roseogrisea], as that has a red iris. A yellow iris means either Mourning Collared Dove [a.k.a. African Mourning Dove; Streptopelia decipiens] or White-winged Collared Dove [Streptopelia reichenowi] - probably the former as (going by the map in HBW) the latter may not occur as far north as Gambela.

@ howiewu - yes, the names are a bit confusing, but nothing to do with Zenaida macroura here!
 
According to Redman et al. Birds of the Horn of Africa both subspecies in Ethiopia of African Mourning Dove do not show differences in eye-ring, imo the iris is still a bit dark so most probably you saw flocks of young non-breeding birds which will develop their reddish eye-ring when adult
 
Thanks for the thoughts. Sorry about confusion with terminology. Yes, I was asking about the Mourning Collared Dove (African Mourning Dove) Streptopelia decipiens, and I saw the bird in Gambela and in some neighboring towns as well. A friend of mine has similar photos with no red eye ring from a month before this. I will be able to double check again next winter to see if they have developed the red eye rings. I had ruled out the White-winged Collared Dove based on distribution, but I shouldn't be so fast to do so...I saw a few other birds in Gambela that were quite far from the distribution map limits (such as Egyptian Vulture).
 
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