[Acrocephalus]

Hi,

African Collared Dove at Awserd? Two very peculiar, white, fairly small doves flying by with the common, darker, Collared Doves seen on 18 February and 2 March in a little savannah-like forest of Acacias located on the North side of the road, 8 kilometers to the West of Awserd at 22°34'N-14°31'W. Photos are available here (B. Maire & A. Mathurin). Your comments are welcome, as well as any info if you visit this site. From Go-south

[Lee Evans]

Mohammed

I saw these two birds and perhaps another two in with 9 or so Eurasian Collared Doves in the vicinity of the water pumping station in Aousswerd on 18 February, after meeting a couple of birders photographing Desert Sparrows on the opposite side of the road. Two individuals were certainly African Collared Doves but other birds in the area appeared to have somewhat intermediate characters.

[Lee Evans]

Checking the images above once again, one of the photographed birds appears to be at the very least leucistic - perhaps albinistic. This does make me wonder seriously about the population of birds here - I believe there is certainly some influence of African Collared Dove in the small isolated population but it does remain to be seen if they are actually pure. Certainly two birds in the flock are very rosey-pink on the underparts, with heavily contrasting gleaming white undertail coverts and darker wings, more of a European Turtle Dove tail pattern and noticeably sleeker and smaller in size.

[Piqa]

Some discussion about the identity of these Streptopelia doves observed at Aousserd last spring. We should look more at these doves in this region to better understand what they are.

Bergier, P., Maire, B. & Mathurin, A. 2012. Records of doves Streptopelia at Awserd, Oued Ad-Deheb. Go-South Bull. 9: 7-12. PDF