Collared Dove, Streptopelia decaocto, sitting on a branch, Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur, India

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The collared dove is not migratory, but is strongly dispersive. Over the last century, it has been one of the great colonisers of the bird world. Its original range at the end of the 19th century was warm temperate and subtropical Asia from Turkey east 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 1900–1920, and then spreading rapidly northwest, reaching Germany in 1945, Great Britain by 1953 (breeding for the first time in 1956), Ireland in 1959, and the Faroe Islands in the early 1970s.

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Size: 5171px × 3519px
Location: Bharatpur,Rajasthan,India
Photo credit: © Dominic Robinson / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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