The European turtle dove was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

The tail is notable as the bird flies from the observer; it is wedge shaped, with a dark centre and white borders and tips.

The mature bird has the head, neck, flanks, and rump blue grey, and the wings cinnamon, mottled with black.

The black and white patch on the side of the neck is absent in the browner and duller juvenile bird, which also has the legs brown.

The turtle dove is a migratory species with a western Palearctic range covering most of Europe and the Middle East and including Turkey and north Africa, although it is rare in northern Scandinavia and Russia.

It will occasionally nest in large gardens, but is usually extremely timid, probably due to the heavy hunting pressure it faces during migration.

The nuptial flight, high and circling, is like that of the common wood pigeon, but the undulations are less decided; it is accompanied by the whip-crack of the downward flicked wings.

Populations of turtle dove are in rapid decline across Europe and this species has red list conservation status globally.

According to a 2001 study cited by the European Commission, between two and four million birds are shot annually in Malta, Cyprus, France, Italy, Spain and Greece.