March 18, 2009

Mick Jagger and the Eurasian Collared Dove


In 2006 I wrote about the Eurasian collared doves' move into southern Colorado. This past year they moved up from the Arkansas Valley into our foothills and now appear in the Project Feeder Watch bird counts.

I find their calls almost mechanical. They make me think of leather belts driving some kind of shaft that opens a steam valve: "Coooo." Steampunk birds.

But one of my favorite bloggers, Margaret Soltan, encountered them on a trip to Florida and heard in their call the last bars of Mick Jagger singing "Sympathy for the Devil" (after his shirt comes off).

Do you hear them?

2 comments:

PBurns said...

Excellent. I think this was Brian Jones's very last appearance with The Rolling Stones. He was pretty gone by this time.

P

Reid Farmer said...

We have scads of Eurasian collared doves that ground feed under our feeders. They also have a harsh undovelike squawk they make.

For some reason our dogs hate them. If the dogs are in the living room and see the birds outside on the deck they bark at them. They don't react to any other bird that way.