The Oriental Turtle Dove (Streptopelia orientalis) is a dove native to the woodlands of Siberia and East Asia, closely related to Europe's Turtle Dove but noticeably heavier built. In Sweden it is a genuine rarity with only a handful of records, making it one of the most sought-after birds for Swedish birdwatchers. About the size of a Wood Pigeon at 33–35 cm, it gives a dark, heavy impression, with warm, dark reddish-brown upperparts marked with black scaling, a patch of black-and-white streaks on the neck sides, and a pinkish-grey breast over paler underparts; in flight it shows a dark, slightly wedge-shaped tail with a pale terminal band, and compared with the Turtle Dove it looks more uniformly dark above, with broader, rounder wings and a greyer, less contrasting tail underside.
The species is rarely heard in Sweden, since the records here involve resting vagrants outside the breeding season, but on its breeding grounds it gives a soft, deep, four-syllable cooing often rendered "hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo", deeper and more monotonous than the Turtle Dove's purring display call. It breeds in a broad belt from the Urals eastward through Siberia to Japan, and Swedish records — nearly always lone vagrants in late autumn, chiefly October–November — come mostly from Öland, Gotland and Skåne, where birds turn up in farmland and deciduous woodland edges near scrub, often among other doves. It does not breed in Sweden; within its normal range it builds a simple, sparse stick platform in a tree or bush, laying a clutch of two eggs, with the young initially fed on nutritious "crop milk" produced by both parents before the eastern populations migrate south to winter in South Asia. Its diet consists mainly of seeds and grain picked up on the ground in open country, such as stubble fields, supplemented with berries, buds and other plant matter depending on season and availability.
Read about this species in Swedish →