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Green feathers on white-winged doves? (1 Viewer)

WTXaviphile

Active member
Last week at mid-day I was looking at a pair of white-winged doves from outside my kitchen door with 8 X 36 Monarch binoculars -- distance about 20 feet -- when I caught a green flash off the neck of one dove. I kept looking and saw on both birds distinct bright green feathers in a spray sort of like the throat gorget of some birds, just below and to the back of the black streak on the side of the neck. Both sides of the necks of both birds.

The green feathers were scattered among gray ones, not in a solid marking.

Possible the feathers are only visible as green when sun is high.

Plenty of white-winged doves come to eat at my feeders, this year outnumbering eurasian collared doves, and I've been looking for 2-3 days for those green feathers. Haven't seen any more.
 
Nothing so far, though I haven't spent much time scanning white winged dove necks.

White winged doves are the second most common bird at my feeders, after house sparrows. Occurs to me I haven't been seeing as many big white winged doves with the onset of cold weather, versus smaller ones, but that is not a scientific observation. Gonna keep looking.
 
Observation confirmed 10-15-17. A small patch of multi-hued green that flashes in the sunlight when the sun is nearly overhead. The patch os located just behind and a little below the black neck bar.

The same bird? Possible but not likely. Is the "green flash" seasonal? Maybe, maybe not. I haven't put in much binoc time looking at white winged doves since last Dec.

One wonders what colors birds see that we usually do not.
 
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Is it gender-related? Seasonal? Matter of age or maturity? Don't know. Answer may come from examination of birds shot by hunters. What other color signals may go unnoted by guidebooks?
 
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