White-tipped Dove

How to find it

In open lowland country, look for it walking on lawns, paths and roadsides, especially early in the morning. It is often seen alone, so scan the ground rather than the trees. Listen first for the hollow call, then search nearby. It sometimes visits bird feeders and is otherwise shy and hard to see well. Roads are a good place to watch for it. On a trip we build, guests can meet it in gardens such as those on the slopes of Turrialba Volcano, where it walks on the ground.

How to recognise it

This is a plain, medium-sized dove with a gray-brown back, a whitish throat and cinnamon-rufous underwings. Look for these marks:

- Tail: white tips that show best in flight and are often hard to see on a walking bird.

- Face and neck: unmarked and plain.

- Eye: orange, with a faint blue patch around it.

- Legs: red.

The unmarked look and the red legs are an easier clue than the tail. Across its whole range the bill is black. The eye-ring is usually red but can be blue in the Amazon and northern South America. A Turrialba writer says the eye-ring skin is blue in Central America, while Gray-chested and Gray-headed Doves have red skin there. It is a shy woodland dove that is heard more often than seen.

What it sounds like

Recording: Chrissy Kondrat, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This dove is not seen in flocks. It walks quietly on the ground, alone or in a pair, and eats seeds, grit and small insects. Across its range it also takes insects including butterflies and moths. In Costa Rica it is known to eat commercial corn readily.

When startled, it flies off with a sharp clatter of wings and shows its white-tipped tail. It is easily drawn to drips and seeps of water, as seen in southern Texas. At Palo Verde it has been studied drinking at water alongside Common Ground-Doves. At a Costa Rican mudflat, one kept trying to land for a drink while another bird kept chasing it away.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it lives in open woodland, coffee plantations, gardens, fields and roadsides along the Pacific slope. It is most common there, especially in deforested areas, and one writer saw it on a lawn in Alajuela. The Costa Rican bird association says it reaches about 800 m along the northern mountain ranges and goes higher where forest has been cleared. One photo record places it at about 819 m, on a path in San José province. It is also on the bird list of Cloudbridge Nature Reserve. It is more likely in disturbed or scrubby areas than its relatives.

Similar birds

Costa Rica has two close relatives in the same genus, Gray-chested Dove and Gray-headed Dove. White-tipped is paler, especially on the neck and belly, with less contrast between gray and rufous tones, and its white tail tips are broader. Gray-chested Dove is darker, shows less white in the tail and has a pale yellow-green eye instead of an orange one. Its song is a single long 'woooo'. All three share white tail corners.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans call it Paloma Coliblanca, Coliblanca or Yuré. Gray-chested Dove shares the name Yuré, so the name can mean either species. A Spanish dictionary entry for Costa Rica calls the yuré a small dove that is very abundant in the country.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list gives it resident status in Costa Rica, and the IUCN lists the species as Least Concern.

Photography tips

Roads are a good place to watch for it, since one blogger photographed it quick-stepping across a road on the Nicoya Peninsula. Ground below feeders and drips of water are other spots where it comes into the open.