Eurasian Collared-Dove

It is a medium-sized dove, with an average length of 32 cm (13 in) from tip of beak to tip of tail, a wingspan of 47–55 cm (19–22 in) and a weight of 125–240 g (4.4–8.5 oz). It is grey-buff to pinkish-grey, slightly darker above than below, and with a blue-grey underwing patch. The tail feathers are grey-buff above, and dark grey and tipped white below; the outer tail feathers are also tipped whitish above. It has a black half-collar edged with white on its nape. The short legs are red, and the bill is black. The iris is red, but from a distance the eyes appear to be black, as the pupil is relatively large; a narrow rim of reddish-brown iris surrounds the black pupil. The eye is surrounded by a small area of bare skin, either white or yellow. The two sexes are identical; juveniles only differ in having a poorly developed collar, and a brown iris. The Eurasian collared dove's call is a three-syllable goo-GOO-goo, with stress placed on the second syllable. It also makes a harsh loud screeching call chrrai-chrrai lasting about two seconds, particularly in flight just before landing. Eurasian collared doves cooing in early spring are sometimes mistakenly reported as the calls of early-arriving common cuckoos. Although the average lifespan is 3 years in the wild, the oldest age for an individual ever documented was over 13 years, 8 months old.

The Eurasian collared dove is resident in Europe from Scandinavia and central Europe and eastwards to the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula and Central Asia. It is strongly dispersive. Over the last century, it has travelled far beyond its native range to colonise colder countries, becoming a permanent resident in several of them. Its original range at the end of the 19th century was Asia, from eastern Turkey to southern China, and south through India to Sri Lanka. In 1838, it was reported in Bulgaria, but not until the 20th century did it expand across Europe, appearing in parts of the Balkans between 1900 and 1920, and then spreading rapidly northwest, reaching Germany in 1945, Denmark in 1948, Great Britain on 14 May 1952 (breeding for the first time in 1956), Ireland in 1959, and the Faroe Islands in the early 1970s. Subsequent spread was 'sideways' from this fast northwestern spread, reaching northeast to north of the Arctic Circle in Norway and east to the Ural Mountains in Russia, and southwest to the Canary Islands and northern Africa from Morocco to Egypt, by the end of the 20th century. In the east of its range, it has also spread northeast to most of central and northern China, and locally (probably introduced) in Japan. …

The Eurasian collared dove often feeds close to human habitation, including at bird feeders; the largest populations typically occur around farms where spilt grain is frequent around grain stores or where livestock is fed. It is a gregarious species, and winter flocks form around food supplies such as grain, seeds, shoots, and insects. Flocks most commonly number between 10 and 50 individuals, but flocks of up to 10,000 individuals have also been sighted. The Eurasian collared dove can drink with its head down, as opposed to scooping up water and tipping its head back. It feeds its chicks a substance derived from its own esophagus called "crop milk", and they receive regurgitated seeds after a maximum of 10 days.

The generic name is from the Ancient Greek streptos meaning "collar" and peleia meaning "dove". The specific epithet, decaocto, is Greek for "eighteen", a traditional onomatopoeia for the bird's call. The association of the dove with the number eighteen has its roots in a Greek myth. A maid who worked hard for little money was unhappy that she was only paid 18 silver coins a year and begged the gods to let the world know how little she was rewarded by her mistress. Zeus, hearing her pleas, created the collared dove (or transformed the maid into the dove), and the maid called out "decaocto" ever since, presumably to tell the world of her mistreatment. In several Balkan languages, the number 18 is a three-syllable word (e.g. tiz-en-nyolc in Frivaldszky's native Hungarian), so is likewise onomatopoeic for the bird's call. As most of its European range in the 19th century, including its type locality, was within the Turkish-controlled Ottoman Empire, its name in many European languages translates as Turkish dove, e.g. Danish Tyrkerdue, German Türkentaube, French Tourterelle turque.