Grenada Dove

© Alan Lewis

© Jan van der Laan

Birdfinding.info ⇒  Grenada’s national bird, a critically endangered endemic, is known mainly from Mount Hartman National Park and Beausejour Dove Sanctuary.  Mount Hartman is convenient for visitors and readily gives up the dove to most searches.

Grenada Dove

Leptotila wellsi

Family: Columbidae

Endemic to Grenada, where it inhabits dry scrub and deciduous woodlands along the south and west coasts.  Since its discovery it was always considered rare, then went through a precipitous decline in the late 1980s.

Much of the global population lives within two protected areas, Mount Hartman National Park and Beausejour Dove Sanctuary (formerly known as Perseverance).  It also occurs outside their boundaries to some extent, but additional locations are not disclosed publicly.

Since the late 1990s, estimates of the total population have ranged from 100 to 182.  Surveys in 2013 produced an estimate of approximately 160—based on detections of 33 calling males—about half in Mount Hartman National Park.

Identification

A typical Leptotila, the only one on Grenada, with unmarked brown upperparts, grayish crown, white forehead, buffy neck and breast, whitish belly, and a contrasting white bar on the side of the breast.

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; June 20, 2013.)  © Angie Cedarlund

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; June 20, 2015.)  © Pete Morris

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; February 28, 2011.)  © Mikko Pyhälä

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada.)  © Greg Homel

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; August 25, 2019.)  © Tony Byrne

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; August 1, 2013.)  © Frantz Delcroix

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; June 20, 2015.)  © Pete Morris

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; June 20, 2013.)  © Angie Cedarlund

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; April 11, 2016.)  © Jesse Fagan

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; June 19, 2015.)  © Pete Morris

Grenada Dove.  (Mount Hartman National Park, Grenada; June 19, 2015.)  © Pete Morris

Voice.  Call is a single descending note repeated at regular intervals of about 7 to 8 seconds:

Notes

Monotypic species.

IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered.

References

BirdLife International 2018. Leptotila wellsi. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T22690874A131031811. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22690874A131031811.en. (Accessed September 13, 2019.)

Bond, J. 1979. Birds of the West Indies (Fourth Edition). Collins, London.

Gibbs, D., E. Barnes, and J. Cox. 2001. Pigeons and Doves: A Guide to the Pigeons and Doves of the World. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.

Raffaele, H., J. Wiley, O. Garrido, A. Keith, and J. Raffaele. 1998. A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.

Rusk, B. 2016. Mt. Hartman Reborn: A Showcase for One of the World’s Rarest Birds. BirdsCaribbean. https://www.birdscaribbean.org/2016/01/mt-hartman-reborn-a-showcase-for-one-of-the-worlds-rarest-birds/.