A large, long-tailed dove; small head and short legs and delicate, wings broad and curved back in flight. Generally pale and lacking in contrast, with greyer areas on wing, silky-grey underwings and wide, dull whitish band beneath tail tip. 

An ordinary-looking dove, although with an appeal and refinement of its own when seen at close range. From the 1930s it spread north and west from the Middle East, crossing the whole of Europe within a few decades and reaching Britain in the 1950s. Its expansion stopped in the 1970s, but it is now one of the most widespread species in the UK.