A pair of collared doves in close formation glide in an elegant arc over the garden hedge and, with an angelic raising of wings, stall their flight and perform a feather-light landing. We used to see a lot of them, fewer in recent years. There’s a suggestion that the species has suffered from the same trichomonosis parasite that has afflicted greenfinches. Competition from wood pigeons – increasingly frequent garden visitors – might have been a factor too.
And here come the wood pigeons, arriving with a bouncy crash-landing, waddling up the garden path, all bluster and swagger. They’re already nesting in our ivy-clad silver birch. Both species are beneficiaries of a trickle-down economy, bestowed by finches scattering seeds from the bird feeders I’ve just refilled.
The westward expansion of collared doves from the Balkans has been spectacular. Four individuals were sighted in Norfolk in 1955, when I was four years old; 70 years later, there are reckoned to be 990,000 breeding pairs nationwide, holding territories from Shetland to the Isles of Scilly. During a lifetime when so many species have declined, I can’t think of another that has done so well. Surprising really, because they seem such reckless nesters.
I’ve watched them incubating two eggs on a flimsy platform of twigs in the swaying leylandii cypress branch, a gift for egg-thieving magpies. Collared doves’ success seems due to sheer persistence: usually three broods a year, exceptionally as many as six.
Apart from that smart black collar and eyes like blood-red garnets, their grey plumage may seem drab from a distance, but there’s a subtle beauty in those sleek feathers – fugitive dusky pink in the chest, a hint of a lavender sheen when light strikes their wings at certain angles.
They peck with metronomic rhythm, then perch side by side on a bare branch above the hedge, preening, dozing, vulnerable to a sparrowhawk that’s been a frequent visitor lately. They would be such easy prey. Collared doves are said to mate for life and these two seem inseparable, so their return brings a sense of anxiety. Logically, I shouldn’t care more about this invasive species than any other birds in the garden. Perhaps it’s the sense of grace, peace and harmony they bring with them.