The story of the Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto in Britain is truly astonishing, and no more so on a local scale than in the Hull area. It is incredible to think that less than fifty years ago this species had never been seen in Britain, yet after the first breeding in Norfolk in 1955 they were nesting in every English county by 1970 and were being destroyed as pests in some areas soon afterwards. This article describes the species' colonisation of Hull and the immediate surrounding villages.

The first report of a Collared Dove in the area carne from West Hull in 1959 and the first pair bred in Westbourne Avenue in 1960. By 1962 birds were frequently heard  singing around  Chanterlands Avenue and Northern Cemetery while Cottingham and Skidby had their first birds
in 1963 and Hedon in 1964. "Large flocks" were now reported to be making feeding flights from
the main breeding areas in Hull's Avenues area, Newland Park and Endsleigh to the British Oils
and Cake Mills in Stoneferry. A further 25
regularly travelled to a lorry park that handled grain in Humber Dock Street. In 1966 Patrick Boylan' s Birds in Hull described the Collared
Dove as a common breeding species in the
city, all this just eight years after first being seen in Hull and only 11 years after the first pair
nested in the UK!

The invasion continued over the following years, with a flock of 90 at Hymers College in January 1969 and a roost of no less than 400 birds in East Park in the same month. The following year saw 200 in the grounds of Hymers College.

By the 1980s a survey of north west Hull, Cottingham and the  surrounding villages by Cottingham Bird Club found Collared Doves to be widespread residents and abundant breeders in all habitats.

A survey of the Avenues in 1996 found them to be common there, too, while breeding was reported throughout the city. Around 70 were in Willerby in the late summer of 1999. Colonisation of the northern and eastern suburbs, meanwhile, such as the newer housing estates of Bransholme and Orchard Park, has been less dramatic than in West Hull and the inner suburbs. Breeding birds are still rather thin on the ground in these districts, although a slow expansion and infilling of vacant sites appears to be underway. The more mature trees and plantings of the pre-war suburbs seem to suit them better than the more sterile outer suburbs, where they are also prone to more predation (human and otherwise).

The major roost at East Park has lasted up to the present time and hundreds of birds can still be seen arriving to settle in the trees in and around the animal enclosure and the eastern islands in the lake from late afternoon onwards, particularly in winter. Sample counts over the years have been 187 in 1970, 117 in 1984, 620 in 1989, 277 in 1998, 120 in 1999 and around 150 in the animal enclosure alone in 2000. The East Park roost is the largest regular concentration to be found in the Hull area.

Collared Doves are now so familiar, so common and so widespread that it is easy to forget the suddenness and scale of their arrival in Hull. They owe their success to being opportunistic feeders, taking seed from bird tables, farmyards and waste ground alike, while nesting in all local habitats where a suitable bush or tree exists.

Richard Broughton