Columbidae

Spotted Dove

Spilopelia chinensis

Gentle cooing from the garden walls — a soft, steady presence about the courtyard.

Seen atKunja ·Jageshwar ·Barechhina ·Ranikhet ·Haldwani

Opens recordings on xeno-canto, the open bird-sound archive.

Stay in the The Dove Room In the Lap of Nature

What the hills call it

Ghughoot

/ ghu·ghoot /घुघूत

KumaoniBird

Spotted Dove — Gentle cooing from the garden walls — a soft, steady presence about the courtyard.

Field notes

Order: Columbiformes
Family: Columbidae · Pigeons & doves
Genus: Spilopelia
Length: 28–32 cm
Weight: 100–160 g
At Kunja: Resident — here all year round
Conservation: Least Concern

How to know it

A soft pinkish-brown dove with a long, white-tipped tail and, on each side of the neck, a black patch finely chequered with white — the spotting that gives the bird its name. Young birds lack the neck-patch.

What it eats

Almost wholly a seed- and grain-eater, picked from the ground — grass and weed seeds, fallen grain. A regular at the spread of drying grain and the edges of the fields.

Where & when to spot it

On the ground in the open — the courtyard, the field edges, the paths — walking with a gentle nodding gait, and on the low walls and wires. Its soft, rolling coo is one of the steady sounds of a hill morning.

Nesting & mating

Builds a flimsy platform of twigs, often surprisingly low in a bush or hedge. Pairs breed through much of the year, both sharing the sitting and feeding the two squabs on protein-rich 'crop-milk'.

In the field

When we’ve seen it

Most often photographed in March, usually in the middle of the day. That makes spring a clear window to spot it around the homestay.

Spotting tip: head out in the middle of the day, walk slowly and stop often, and listen as much as you look — most of these birds call before they show themselves.

In the lens