Bird Research News

Vol.3 No.8

2006. 8.11.

Oriental Turtle Dove

Kijibato (Jpn) Streptopelia orientalis

Morphology and classification
Classification: Columbiformes Columbidae
Total length:
Wing length:
Tail length:
Culmen length:
Tarsus length:
Weight:33-35cm♂192-201mm♂126-142mm♂16.3-18.2mm♂25.5-29.1mm
165-274g♀188-196mm♀124-138mm♀15.3-18.3mm♀24.7-29.3mm

The total length and weight after del Hoyo et al. (1997), and the other measurements
after Cramp (1985).

Appearance:
Oriental Turtle Doves are similar in plumage coloration in males and females. They
are purplish ashy brown from the head tothe chest and belly. They have a patch of
black and blueish gray stripes on bothsides of the throat. The feathers of a wing
covert are dark brown with reddish brownedges, which forms a scaly pattern in thewing. The tail is black with light gray tipand edges. The bill is charcoal gray andthe legs are purplish red. The iris is orange.

Photo 1. Oriental Turtle
Dove. [Hideo Tani]four days. The nest is built at a height of 3m on average with arange of 0-10m. They usually build a nest in a tree, but sometimes
in a bush about half a meter from the ground.

From egg-laying to fledging:
The clutch size is usually two eggs,
which are small (33 by 26 mm)
and white (Kakizawa & Kogaito1999). Males incubate in the daytime and females from the evening
till the next morning. The incubation period is 14-16 days, and either parent bird continue to broodnestlings for about four days after Photo 2. Five-day-old nestlings
hatching. Hatchlings are charcoal
gray and sparsely covered with yellow down (Photo 2).
Oriental Turtle Doves also feed to their nestlings pigeon milk secreted from the crop as other pigeons. Pigeon milk is a cottage
cheese-like substance rich in nutrients, such as protein and lipids.
Both males and females secrete it. Parent birds feed only pigeon
milk to nestlings at first, but gradually feed them grass seeds andgrains (staple food of the species) as well. The nestling period is14-17 days. Nestlings leave the nest when they are about 60% of
their parent birds in weight. Fledglings are provided with food by
their parents.

Breeding period:
Vocalization:
Oriental Turtle Doves continuously make low cooing "Dedep, poh-poh". They utter "Coo" bowing with a swollen throat in a mating
display. They may give out "Punn!" in threat.

Distribution and Habitat
Distribution:
Oriental Turtle Doves are distributed in the central to eastern partof the Eurasian Continent, western Siberia, India, China, Vietnam,Korea and Japan. Though they are year-round residents in middle
to low latitudes, birds breeding in high latitudes migrate south in
the wintering period. In Japan nominotypical subspecies Streptopelia orientalis orientalis is distributed in and north of Kyushu(the southernmost main island) and S. o. stimpsoni occurs in Yakushima Island, the Amami Islands and the Ryukyu Islands (one ofthe southernmost island groups). They are year-round residents
except in Hokkaido (the northernmost main island) and northernmost Honshu (the largest main island), where they are summervisitors.

Habitat:Oriental Turtle Doves are frequently observed in farmland andcoppices around it, but they occur in a wide variety of habitats,ranging from a subalpine zone to urban areas. They were once
called "Yamabato (mountain or wood dove)", which suggests thatthey lived primarily in lowland woods. In recent years, however,they are also common in urban and suburban residential areas.

Life history
Breeding system:
Oriental Turtle Doves are monogamous breeder, and both males
and females work together to breed. A breeding pair usually moves
together, except when a male or female partner is incubating eggs
or nestlings.

Nest:
They build a plate-shaped nest, putting twigs together. Since thenest is shoddy and simple, it is completed in around2
4♪ http://www.bird-research.jp/1_shiryo/koe/kijibato_040504_kokubunji_mju.mp3
Mutsuyuki Ueta

The breeding period of Oriental Turtle Doves is very long, andthey breed all the year round in some areas (Fig. 1), which is probably related to the feeding of pigeon milk to nestlings. In many
bird species, the breeding period is synchronized with the time
when food for nestlings is abundant. But pigeons can breed without being affected by the fluctuation of food supplies because they
feed nutritious pigeon milk to nestlings. There is a research reportthat the peak breeding period of Oriental Turtle Doves corresponds
to the time when food for parent birds is in plentiful supply (Nakao1984). The peak period varies between regions. For instance, it isfrom late May to June in Hokkaido and Iwate Prefecture, and from
August to September in Kyoto. In contrast to these areas with asingle peak in a breeding season, there are two peaks in Ibaraki
and Aichi Prefs., but the period and frequency of the breeding peak
may vary depending on the year.
1Hokkaido

2 3absentIwate, Ibaraki & non-breeding
Nagano Prefs
Aichi & Kyoto Prefs

456 7 8 9 10 11 12breeding period migration
breeding period
breeding period

Fig. 1. Breeding period of Oriental Turtle Doves varies between regions.

Topics of ecology, behavior and conservation● Reproductive success and past nesting record
Oriental Turtle Doves may breed several times in a long breeding
period. There is a record of the pair that attempted to breed eighttimes a year. Another pair bred successfully four times a year. On
the other hand, some pairs breed only once a year. Wada (1991)
showed that Oriental Turtle Doves nested at a similar height and at
a similar distance from a tree trunk again when their previous
breeding was successful. He also revealed that they tended to failin breeding when they reused the old nest where they had failed
within 60 days of the previous breeding attempt (Wada 1992). The
study suggests that the previous breeding performance has an effect on the nest site selection and performance of the following
breeding.

♪ http://www.bird-research.jp/1_shiryo/koe/kijibato_120506_kokubunji_mju.mp3
Mutsuyuki Ueta

Bird Research News

Vol.3 No.8

2006. 8.11.

© Japan Bird Research Association
Sumiyoshi 1-29-9, Fuchu, Tokyo, Japan

バードリサーチ生態図鑑● Predator and anti-predator behavior● Damage of Oriental Turtle Doves to crops

The breeding success of Oriental Turtle Doves varies dependingon the season and year, but it is 20-40 % (Abe 1979, Murakami &Fujimaki 1983) which is lower than other bird species. Predation isprimarily responsible for their breeding failure. Reported nest
predators are Large-billed Crows (Corvus macrorhynchos), Carrion Crows (C. corone), Azure-winged Magpies (Cyanopica cyanus), cats (Felis catus) and Japanese rat snakes (Elaphe climacophora). When predators approach the nest, parent birds may hit
them with the wings or jump down from the nest to feign injury.
These behaviors can be conducted to save eggs or nestlings frompredation. However, whether these behaviors were conducted tothe author or not is not significantly related to nest site features,
habitat conditions, seasons, nestling's age in day and breeding
success rates (Kameda 1994). Although Oriental Turtle Dovesattempt to avoid nest predation through nest site selection and antipredator behavior, there is still no evidence that these behaviors
contribute to breeding success.

Oriental Turtle Doves have been studied in terms of their agricultural damage as well. The staple food of this species is plant seedsand grains. In the vicinity of farmland, therefore, there is a large
proportion of crops in the stomach contents of Oriental Turtle
Doves. The crops consist primarily of soybeans from the sowing togerminating period and wheat at the harvesttime (Nakao 1984,Matsuoka & Nakamura 1987). It is reported that the crop damageof Oriental Turtle Doves is closely related to crop seasonality andthe breeding period of Oriental Turtle Doves corresponds to thetime with an abundant supply of the crops which are food forthem.

● Breeding strategy: Advantage of clutch size and annuallymultiple breeding

Nestling period (day)Nestling weight at fledging (g)As mentioned above, the clutch andegg sizes of pigeons are relatively
small. Small egg and clutch sizes play
an important role in the breeding strategy of pigeons. In short, it is assumed
to be more strategically advantageousfor Oriental Turtle Doves to reduce aclutch size and increase the annual
frequency of breeding than to increase Photo 3. Nest where chicks
are experimentally ina clutch size and breed once a year
creased to three birds.
because they are at the high risk ofTen days after hatching.
nest predation.
I checked whether there was any difference in breeding performance and the growth rate of nestlings between a normal two-birdbrood, an experimentally decreased one-bird brood and an increased three-bird brood to verify this assumption (Photo. 3; Kameda 1996). The mean number of fledglings was larger in a threebird brood than in a two-bird brood, but the mean weight of nestlings at fledging was lighter in a three-bird brood and the nestling
period was longer because the smallest nestling remained for alonger time in a nest than the other two (Fig. 2). In addition, it isassumed that the survival rateof the smallest nestlings is
150
lower after leaving the natalsite and the fledgling period
100(from fledging to independence) is longer because they50
are lighter in weight at fledging. Prolonged fledgling0
period reduces the total annu1
2
3
al frequency of breeding
18
attempts. Therefore, it isassumed that Oriental Turtle
16
Doves have adopted a strate14
gy to increase annual breeding frequency by decreasing
12
investment in one breedingattempt as countermeasures10
1
2
3
against nest predation instead
Number of nestlings per nest (bird)of increasing the number offledglings in one breeding Fig. 2. Nestling weight at fledging
attempt. This strategy is ad(above) and nestling period (below)
in nests with 1, 2 and 3 nestlings
vantageous in this species
Drawn after Kameda (1996).
with high predation pressure.

Literature
Abe T. 1979. Foraging behaviour of Streptopelia orientalis and the control
methods of its injury. Shokubutsu-Boeki 33: 508-512. [J]Cramp S. 1985. Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East andNorth Africa. Vol. 4. Terns to Woodpeckers. Oxford University Press,Oxford.
del Hoyo J., Elliott A. & Sargatal J. (eds). 1997. Handbook of the Birds ofthe World. Vol.4. Sandgrous to Cuckoos. Lynx Eddicions, Barcelona.
Kakizawa R. & Kogaito G. 1999. Nests and Eggs of Birds of Japan. Sekai
Bunka Publishing Inc, Tokyo. [J]Kameda K. 1994. Effectiveness of antipredator behavior of the RufousTurtle Dove Streptopelia orientalis. Jpn. J. Ornithol. 43:79-89.
Kameda K. 1996. Optimal brood size and its limiting factors in the Rufous
Turtle Dove Streptopelia orientalis. Ecol. Res. 11:51-60.
Matsuoka S. & Nakamura K. 1987. Seasonal Fluctuation of Soybean Damage Intensity by Rufous Turtle Dove Streptopelia orientalis and theFactors Affecting It. Jpn. J. Ornithol. 36:55-64. [J+E]
Murakami J. & Fujimaki Y. 1983. Breeding biology of Rufous Turtle DoveStreptopelia orientalis in the Tokachi District, Hokkaido. Tori 31: 95106. [J+E]
Nakao H. 1984. Fluctations in Population Density and Breeding Performance of the Rufous Turtle Dove, Streptopelia orientalis, in Hokkaido.
Jap. J, Appl. Ent, Zool. 28:193-200. [J+E]
Wada T. 1991. A dynamic aspect of nest site choice in the Rufous Turtle
Dove, Streptopelia orientalis. Physiol. Ecol. Jpn. 28:1-12.
Wada T. 1992. An implicit cost of nest re-use in the Rufous Turtle Dove,Streptopelia orientalis. Jpn. J. Ornithol. 40:43-50.
Wada T. 1994. Effects of height of neighboring nests on nest predation in
the Rufous Turtle-Dove (Streptopelia orientalis). Condor 96:812-816.
Languages of literature cited other than English: [J] in Japanese, [J+E] in Japanesewith English summary.

AuthorKayoko KAMEDA

Lake Biwa Museum

My mentor's suggestion was that it is easy to study a common species
which tends to have unknown aspects. Therefore, I followed the adviceand I chose to study Oriental Turtle Doves. During the five years ofmy graduate school, I ran around the campus of University of Tsukuba
by bicycle searching for their nests. When I found one, I climbed thenest tree to measure nestlings. It was my only achievement in theschool days that I carried out fieldwork almost
every day for nine months of a year. In 1996
when I joined the staff of the museum, Iswitched my focus from doves to Great Cormorants to study the impact of birds on the ecosystem. For some reason, I have studied only thebirds that have little “sense of season” (nodistinct non-breeding season) and nestlings
with "monster faces". But I admire them, wondering if their opportunistic and happy-golucky characters are the toughness and broadmindedness that they have acquired to live inthe close vicinity of humans.
kameda@lbm.go.jp
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