Posted by Wayne G. Barber & Photos Credit is Wayne G. Barber Library
The Mourning Dove holds a special place in a birders heart, and ears. This scribe describes them as the "Turtle Dove of Connecticut". My memory recalls a famous Christmas song with them also called the 12 days of Christmas. In the past century the pigeon/dove type bird was called the Carolina Dove. It breeds throughout North America from southern Canada to Mexico and winters from south of the Great Lakes to Panama. Since 1920 it has become more common in the northern part of its range. Mourning Doves do migrate, at least in the north and the birds you are now seeing came down in winter from up farther on the continent , not the same individuals you fed and saw all summer.
Many passionate backyard birders find the soft, distinctive cooing of this dove to be calming and utterly peaceful. The birds constantly vocalize and that's where they get their name, because of their mournful call. The dove is a bird of lawns, shade trees, orchards, open woodlands, roadsides, barnyards, farmlands, sand dunes, beaches and open meadows. In the west it frequents plains and mountains, and breads to the elevation of 8,000 feet. The species has benefited by the settlement of North America, Fields, woodlots, hedgerows also overgrazed pastures and abandoned farms.
On the ground the bird walks instead of hopping and bobs its head as it walks. The gravel it picks up is used in its crop as an aid to digestion. Like other doves and pigeons, but unlike most birds, it can drink without raising its head. Ours love to bask in the sun on a sandy spot, with its breast flat on the ground and its head bent back over its shoulder. It sometimes tries to lure intruders from its nest by limping along the ground, pretending, it has a broken wing. Its flight is swift, 55 mph, and it is usually direct, but many times be erratic, particularly in the wind.. Their wings beat 147 times per minute. I have observed that they regularly fly in by three bird formation. The two adults and one off-spring In the North, the average bird adult weight is 140 grams and the in the South it is 100 grams. This follows Barber's rule that individuals of the same species tend to become larger in cooler climates. Males outnumber females by 13 percent when immature, by 28 per cent when adult.
Both sexes share in incubation and brooding. The male sits for 8 hours and the female sits the remainder of the time. She raises two broods each year in the North and three or four in the South.
Description: About 12 inches in length, small head: bill is slender and swollen at the base: wings and tail, long and pointed: legs, short. Brown head: buffy gray body with a slight bluish cast on wings: black spot below eye. Incubation in my yard is about 14to 15 days. I would say the young stay at the nest for 13 to 15 days. Both parents secrete a milky substance and are fed this for at least 7 days from the lining of the adult crop and regurgitated into the mouths of the young. The muscles of its throat seem to twitch and the birds milk come up for the young to swallow. Very popular hunting bird down south and the hunter will scout the watering holes that the birds every day repeat going back to twice. My good friends at the Audubon Society census show the bird in the top 25 most common in our annual nationwide bird counts. Normally will only feed on the ground and to encourage the gorgeous Turtle Doves to visit your yard, install an open platform feeder or just scatter seeds across the ground. Wild grasses, grains and ragweed are part of their varied diet and they will eat larger sunflower seeds and a shelled peanut too on occasion. Turtle Doves and Pigeons are a favorite warm meal for domestic cats, ferrel cats and dogs and our local Northern Goshawk and our Red Tailed Hawk who are part of our back yard eco-system. Do you have a favorite at your feeders ?
