As I go through my images taken at Point Reyes in upgrading the images on my website I’m finding some interesting photos I didn’t appreciate when I took them. I took this photo last February. I don’t think I had any thought about it at the time.  When I came across it yesterday my first thought was that it was a mourning dove. But it didn’t look exactly like a mourning dove. Band-tailed pigeon? No. It’s a Eurasian Collared-Dove. It’s native to India. It seems they got started in Florida (like so many things) and spread from there. They compete with our native mourning doves. This got me to thinking. How many non-native birds are there in Point Reyes National Seashore (and/or Marin County for that matter)? The ones I see most at Point Reyes are brown-headed cowbirds and European starlings. Sometimes I’ll see a wild turkey there. There must be house sparrows. I think there are barred owls in the Seashore, which compete with Northern spotted owls. What other birds? I don’t know. Probably several more.
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It’s beautiful, and your written paragraph makes me wonder how some of these birds ever made\it this far. Even getting to Florida from foreign countries across the Atlantic. Unless they were
brought by people. How interesting never thought about it before because when I see birds here
in Marin I just think they have always been here.
Hi Charlotte. I think most were brought in by collectors and they are later released or they escape. Some are brought in unintentionally via ships etc. I guess some get in without help by man.