Document text
Story of collared doves still being written Apr 24, 2020 12:00 AM A A Sitting on my back porch sipping my morning coffee, I listen to the sounds of approaching spring. There is an eerie calm. Varied thrushes, ruby-crowned kinglets and dark-eyed juncos have been tuning up for more than a month, but they have departed and taken their song with them to Canada and the high country where they will breed. The male Anna’s hummingbirds having already dazzled the females who are now rearing young without the help of the males sing only occasionally. Robins are singing at dawn but not as intensely as they will shortly as breeding begins in earnest. There are others, but the cacophony of spring is still in the future. We are in transition. There is one bird that started singing in January and has continued unabated. The song of the collared dove hangs in the background, repeated endlessly to the point most people filter it out. The hollow three-note song starts and ends with brief notes, with the middle note drawn out just a bit. Twenty years ago this voice was absent from the chorus. In about 2003 the first collared doves appeared in the valley after establishing a beachhead in Florida and then explosively spreading across the country. At the time there were many serious questions and concerns from biologists about how this addition would impact our native wildlife. Would mourning dove numbers crash with the competition? Would there be other unforeseen consequences? The history of invasive species is not a happy one. Star thistle and medusa-head have taken over much of our grazing land. Bullfrogs have seriously depleted our native frog and turtle populations. An introduced water mold threatens the existence of Port Orford Cedar. Watercraft are inspected at our ports of entry in hopes of preventing zebra mussels from becoming established as they have elsewhere in North America with unhappy results. Starlings and house sparrows have challenged our western bluebirds and other cavity-nesting birds, out-competing them for nesting sites. We have watched and waited to learn of the impact of the collared dove. It is time for an update. So far, the impacts appear to be minimal. As numbers of collared doves have soared, mourning dove numbers have not crashed. Still, mourning dove numbers are down. They used to be regular visitors in my yard. Now it’s collared doves all the time. Collared doves appear to be more civilized than the rustic mourning doves. Collared doves tend to dwell more in the cities and suburbs while the mourning doves enjoy country life. We are fortunate that collared doves are so closely associated with humans. Personally, I am partial to mourning doves, but that is a value judgment. I am relieved that the collared dove appears to have integrated itself into the fabric of wildlife native to the area with relatively minor disruption. Still, it is early, and there may be other impacts not yet recognized. The story of the collared dove is not finished, but so far, so good. Stay tuned. As an ecologist I live in fear of the next addition to our landscape that may not be so benign. Stewart Janes is a biology professor, emeritus, at Southern Oregon University. He can be reached at [email protected].