This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the mourning dove.
If you keep seed feeders in your yard in summer, it is likely that you have this native dove cleaning up the ground below them. Even when insects are abundant, seeds make up 99 percent of the diet of the mourning dove. This adaptable bird can be found from Mexico to southern Canada and across much of the United States in summer. Typically we find them in our area from April through October.
Mourning doves are found in a variety of open habitats, including grasslands, open forests, suburban parks and yards, croplands, and even deserts as long as there are seeds available. Bobbing their heads as they walk along, they don’t stop to be selective when collecting seeds from the ground. Instead, each one can pick up a large quantity of seeds which it transfers to a pouch-like storage chamber in the throat called the crop and then flys off to a protected place to digest them later. In their first days of life, young doves are fed a nutrient-rich liquid called pigeon milk, which is formed by cells in the crop.
From the crop, seeds are moved to the first stomach chamber where they are broken down by digestive enzymes before the muscular gizzard grinds them with the aid of sand and grit which the dove has swallowed. Doves can drink without tipping back the head by using the beak like a straw to suck up liquid — an adaptation which decreases their vulnerability to predators.
Mourning doves are named for their soft calls, usually sung by the male, which sound like laments. In profile, they appear plump-bodied with a small head, short beak and long, pointed tail. They are grayish-brown above, peach-colored below and show large black spots on their wings. A pale blue ring surrounds each eye.
Due to their status as one of the most frequently hunted species in the United States, mourning doves are extremely skittish. On take off, their wings produce an identifiable sharp whistling sound which acts as an alarm sound to other birds.
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Photo courtesy Charles Martinez