Tits Population

They’re back! ……..and looking great – the Tit population at my home in West Sussex has suddenly exploded – great numbers and great variety – I have had Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, ...

Starling Gangs

Oh No! (says David Cole, a long time Twootz customer and wildlife photographer). Towards the end of June each year the starlings arrive – parents with masses of squabbling adolescence youngsters. ...

Where Have All the Blue Tits Gone?

So where have all the Blue Tits gone? At this time of the year I often have friends asking me where all of the Blue Tits have gone. There were throngs of them just a couple of months ago, but no ...

Great Spotted Woodpeckers

A total of seven Great Spotted Woodpeckers are dominating activity on my main feeding station. They are from two families – one to the north and the other to the south of my home and they are causin ...

Pheasant

Percy’s Back !!!! Every year when the shooting season finishes a fine cock pheasant appears at my feeding station. He is certainly not he same one that I noticed and fed by hand some twelve years ...

The Collared Dove

Date: 2014-10-30 14:12:57 | Category: Bird Watching | Author: David Cole
How about this for a major success story - in the mid 1950's a stranger arrived on our shores and has managed to establish a good breeding population without becoming a pest or damaging indigenous populations of similar birds.

Collared Dove



The Collared Dove is an elegant pigeon-like bird with a triple phrase 'coo'. Part of their success is the extended breeding season which extends from March to October - the picture is of a pair still enthusiastically courting on my West Sussex bird table - they lay 2-5 clutches of eggs during the season - normally numbering just two eggs which hatch after an incubation period of about two weeks. The young are fed initially on 'Crop Milk' which the adults secrete from their crops - it is rich in protein and fat and helps to produce fledglings which are ready to leave the nest in about three weeks from hatching.

The 'nest' is a bit of a joke - often being just a token collection of twigs from which eggs often escape and can be found on the ground - they are white, smooth and glossy, just over an inch long.

Our pair are enthusiastic about the seed mixes supplied by TWOOTZ and have visited the bird tables for the whole of this breeding season being followed in by the juveniles which lack the black collar.