Early record Common Nighthawk and Ringed Turtle-dove in Bishop

From: Chris Howard and Rosie Beach
Email: choward@telis.org
Remote Name: 209.209.67.249
Date: 05/20/02
Time: 09:02:44 AM

Description

We heard and saw our first of spring Common Nighthawk "peent"ing high over our house last evening, May 19th. This is the earliest record for spring for Inyo County AND California, ever, by one day. Tom and Jo Heindel saw the previous record on May 20th, 2000 at Deep Springs College.

The photographed "collared" dove below was in a willow behind our house yesterday. We presume it's an escaped cage bird...we followed the sound of some cooo-cuoooing to a neighbor's large pen filled with a dozen or so doves. Based on the white under-tail coverts, we thought the photographed bird was a Ringed Turtle-dove. The very similar Eurasian Collared-dove, which has started showing up in Inyo in a westward expansion and has been reported from our neighborhood, has gray under-tail coverts.