Red-Eyed Dove

Judy and I visited the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens in Capetown, South Africa, on May 27, 2018 and saw some beautiful red-eyed doves there.  I posted one photo on iNaturalist and indicated it was a western cape ring-necked dove and got four identifiers who disagreed and said it was a red-eyed dove. Two of them were the top two identifiers on iNaturalist of red-eyed doves, alanhorstmann and colin25, who have identified 4,258 and 1,915 of them respectively. 

The forehead and face are pale bluish gray and merge into a darker hue on the crown; a narrow black band extends from the bill gape to the eye; the neck, breast and underparts are dark mauve-pink to wine-red, with some gray suffusion; the upperparts are grayish brown; the primaries are black; the outer wing-coverts are dark slaty-blue; the flanks, sides of rump and underwing-coverts are bluish gray; the ventral region and undertail-coverts are white; a black half-collar crosses the hindneck; the underwing is dark bluish gray; the iris varies from yellowish to orange to red or orange-brown; the orbital skin is purplish red; the bill is black to purplish black; and the legs are reddish purple or grayish purple. This description is best fulfilled in the photos above, where there was good light, than in the illustration below. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

It is found through most of sub-Saharan Africa, except in desert areas. 

Range from Birds of the World.