At some point, perhaps over the summer, I read or heard the name “collard-dove”, but that’s all I had, just the name. Then, on Sunday, as I rode by a farmhouse on the way from one open field to another, I spotted a few birds that I figured were wood pigeons or even rock pigeons, but something clicked in my head. “Oh! I bet that’s what a ‘collard dove’ would look like.” And just like that, we’ve got a new bird, the Eurasian collared-dove (Streptopelia decaocto)
Despite the similarity, they are not super close cousins to the mourning doves we see regularly in Estabrook Park, but only in the same subfamily Columbinae. Although they have been introduced to North America, their range appears to stop just short of the Milwaukee area, and no one on Ebird has reported spotting one in Estabrook Park, yet, so it might be a new bird for you, too.
Anyway, here’s another great spotted woodpecker, who I simply could not catch looking our way, even though the sun was lighting it up so nice and the sky was such a perfect blue. Oh well.
Finally, this speckled wood could be our last butterfly spotting of the season!
Signs of Life in Estabrook Park 