Specie's Page                                               Garden and Hedgerow - Stock Doves

Stock Doves:

UK Status: Resident and native to the UK.

Habitat: Although nesting in trees, this dove prefers more open, lightly wooded country such as Parkland, Gardens, heaths, moors, hedgerows to name a few.

Breeding: Stock Doves start nesting in Late February, and continue on well into late summer. Their nest is a platform of twigs with dead leaves interwoven into them. Nests are placed in holes in trees, and sometimes in stone buildings. Two white glossy eggs are laid, eggs take sixteen to eighteen days to hatch. Both parents take turns incubating the eggs, and their offspring take about four weeks to fledge. There can be up to four broods each year, the fourth in favourable years is often fledging in late September.

Comment: Very similar in appearance to the Rock Dove, only having a single dark bar on the wing casing, whereas the Rock Dove has two dark bars. Stock Doves do not have the pale rump of the Rock Dove, but do have in irridescant green band on the back of the neck. Once a common bird but is becoming scarcer, and this is of some concern. It is to be found in England, Wales, east Ireland, the south of Scotland, and eastern Scottish coast. The highest concentrations of this dove are in the English midlands.

Rock Dove