Collared Dove ( Streptopelia decaoto )

As it is the weekend of the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch the blip just had to be another bird.  This one posed nicely up in the sun on the tree.  I haven't blipped them often as they are very flighty, if they see the slightest movement they are off.

It is a singularly appropriate bird for the weekend.  Yesterday I was posting all the gloomy figures about how various species were decreasing.  The Collared Dove is an example of rapid expansion.  When I was born there weren't any in the UK.   At the end of the 19th century, they were in Turkey by 1945 they had reached Germany and first nested in the UK in 1956 after having been first seen in the country in 1953 (I wonder if they came to celebrate the coronation).  Now they are found all over the UK wherever there is suitable habitat.