Turtur afer
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10%
The blue-spotted wood dove or blue-spotted dove (Turtur afer) is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is abundantly present throughout Africa south of the Sahel; it is partially present in East Africa and absent in southern Africa.
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the blue-spotted wood dove in his six volume Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name La tourterelle de Sénégal and the Latin Turtur senegalensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the blue-spotted wood dove which he placed with all the other pigeons in the genus Columba. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Columba afra and cited Brisson's work. The specific name afer is the Latin word for "Africa". The species is now placed in the genus Turtur that was introduced in 1783 by... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 2 | Kibale National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 3 | Odzala-Kokoua National Park | 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo | |
| 4 | Murchison Falls National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 5 | Taï National Park | 🇨🇮 Ivory Coast | |
| 6 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 7 | Virunga National Park | 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo | |
| 8 | Akagera National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 9 | Semuliki National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 10 | Liwonde National Park | 🇲🇼 Malawi | |
| 11 | Gorongosa National Park | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 12 | Bwindi Impenetrable National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 13 | Kidepo Valley National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 14 | Lake Manyara National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 15 | Ruaha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 16 | Arusha National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 17 | Nyungwe National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 18 | Kafue National Park | 🇿🇲 Zambia | |
| 19 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 20 | Tarangire National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazzaville | 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo | |
| 2 | Yaoundé | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | |
| 3 | Accra | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 4 | Kigali | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 5 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Freetown | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | |
| 7 | Lagos | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 8 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 9 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 10 | Abidjan | 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-spotted Wood-Dove sighting in Arusha National Park on a given day, based on 11 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 295th most-seen of the 373 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March and April
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Blue-spotted Wood-Dove in Arusha National Park on a given day, against under 5% in May to February, the lowest months. Those are among Arusha National Park's wettest months, with about 330 mm of rain a month against 65 mm in September.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Blue-spotted Wood-Dove sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
16th of 20
Of the 20 parks where we can rate Blue-spotted Wood-Dove sightings, Arusha National Park ranks 16th at under 5%. The best odds are in Queen Elizabeth National Park (Uganda, about 40%), Kibale National Park (Uganda, about 30%) and Odzala-Kokoua National Park (Republic of the Congo, about 20%).
Same genus: Turtur
The closest relatives of the Blue-spotted Wood-Dove that you can see in Arusha National Park (genus Turtur, Wood-Doves) are Tambourine Dove (about 30%) and Emerald-spotted Wood-Dove (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Blue-spotted Wood-Dove is recorded against all the birds logged in Arusha National Park (11 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
