Collared Dove exhibition flight

Collared Doves have a extraordinary behaviour, their display flight. As males incubate during the day - between 10 am and 4 pm -, and females by night, males are most vocal and active advertising their territory in the early morning and in the evening. Males call their repeated three-note phrase from a prominent perch an aerial or a tree top in the vicinity of their nest. At the end of their call they pause and then launch themselves into a display of pure flight power: climbing almost vertically up to 10 m into the sky, and then gliding down in a broad, long spiral, with wings kept spread pointing downwards, and tail fanned, to finish in the same or nearby spot, sometimes calling a mute trumpet-like landing call. The wing flaps make a soft whistling noise. This sequence can be repeated several times in the early morning and evening. This morning I watched this male sitting on a church top calling, and managed to get the initial jump of the perch into his display flight.

You can watch a slow motion clip of the display flight by redjered here