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 🙂
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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