Prairie newcomer - Eurasian Collared-Dove

Student Erik Hedlin holds aloft a fuzzy prairie newcomer. Margaret Madsen photo

When I heard the strange cooing like a Mourning Dove with a cold, I didn't know it was an historical moment. It was spring 2003 and we were living in Delisle, SK. The sound came from a pale dove on the power line running down the back alley behind our house. I needed my binoculars for a better view. Yikes! When I saw the black collar, I instantly recognized it as a bird I had first seen a few years earlier in Yorkshire, England - Eurasian Collared Dove.

There was a hitch, however. I couldn't find it in my old field guide books for North American birds. The next day, I saw a pair and this time had an even better view. It sure looked like the Eurasian Collared-Doves in the European field guide. That's when I phoned Dr. Stuart Houston in Saskatoon whose name I had seen often in Blue Jay magazine, a Nature Saskatchewan publication.

Could I possibly be seeing Eurasian Collared-Doves?

Absolutely, he said. They had been introduced to the Bahamas in 1974, dispersed from there to Florida and continued expanding their range until they reached Regina, but they had never been sited as far north as the Saskatoon area. He, his wife Mary and another couple came out to Delisle and confirmed their identity.

It was two years later that Tom Lawton, a neighbor across the street and down a few houses, reported a pair nesting in a tall spruce tree in his front yard. On Aug. 12, 2005, Dr. Houston arrived with his banding gear and with his young assistant, Erik Hedlin, to scale the tree. The chicks, two at this point, were too small to band and it wasn't until week later on Aug. 19 the first Eurasian Collared-Dove was banded in the Saskatoon area. The second chick had died from injuries.

Dr. Houston speculates that this could be the first photo taken of a tiny Eurasian Collared-Dove in Saskatchewan!