Bar-shouldered Dove, not a Pallid Cuckoo
At first I thought this bird was a Pallid Cuckoo, but I was wrong. It’s a Bar-shouldered Dove. Thank you to Carol Probets for pointing this out in the comments on this post! Funny: In the original version of this post, I wrote, “It looks a bit like a large pigeon, doesn’t it?” 🙂
I didn’t know we had such large doves in Sydney. According to my bird book, Bar-shouldered Doves are common in northern Australia, but “uncommon or vagrant” in the south.
Common name:Bar-shouldered Dove
Scientific name: Geopelia humeralis
Approximate length: 30 cm
Date spotted: 1 September 2018 (early spring)
Location: Manly Dam National Park, New South Wales, Australia: 33°47’03.1″S 151°15’17.3″E
Posted on 2018/09/01, in Birds, Dove and tagged australia, Bar-shouldered Dove, birds, birdwatching, cuckoo, Dove, Pallid Cuckoo, Sydney birds. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
Sydney Birder 
Hi Sarah, the bird in the photo is actually a Bar-shouldered Dove. We should see a few Pallid Cuckoos this spring, as drought conditions usually push more of them coastwards. Listen for the unmistakable rising-semitone call, that’s how you’ll know it’s a male 🙂
I meant to add it’s an understandable error. The cuckoo has a more streamlined shape (more falcon-like than pigeon-like), bold white markings on the tail (as opposed to the pattern of overlapping white feather tips on your dove), and a yellowish eye-ring *around* the eye which is dark, unlike the dove which has a yellow iris. You can actually see the dove’s lovely coppery hindneck in your photo. cheers, Carol
Hallo Carol
Thanks for all the info! I’ve corrected the post so that it talks about the dove now, rather than the cuckoo. Wow, that’s a big dove.
Cheers
Sarah
interesting, that angle makes it look like a pigeon as you say. Hard to see the shape of the bill, which I presume would be definitive.
Hi Pamela, pigeons and doves are the same group of birds and this is definitely a Bar-shouldered Dove, for the reasons outlined in my second reply above. As you and Sarah both noted, the shape is pigeon(dove)-like; certainly not the shape of a cuckoo. The coppery scalloping at the back of the neck is diagnostic for Bar-shouldered and can be seen clearly in Sarah’s photo.