The Barbary Dove was introduced to New Zealand as a cage bird but has become feral from time to time.

The bird is pale creamy buff, with a white chin, belly and undertail coverts and has a distinctive black half-collar around the back of the neck.  The eye is red, the bill black and the feet are crimson.  The call is a persistent ‘coo-crooo’.

They eat clover and weed seeds, split grain and newly sown or stubble grain supplemented with occasional invertebrates such as snails.

Breeding is mainly between October and February and they renest several times a season.  They lay 2 white eggs on a simple platform of twigs.  Both adults incubate for about 15 days and the chicks fledge at about 15 days old.

Rare sighting on Tiri.

Photography by: Max McRae ©

References: Heather, B.D.; Robertson, H.A. 2000 The Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand. Auckland, Viking.