Mourning Dove

The Mourning Dove is a frequent visitor to backyards, and for good reason. It is the most abundant and widespread dove, found in a variety of habitats. 

It is about 12 inches long, with a trim body and small head. The long tail tapers to a point which unique among American doves. The tail feathers are black bordered with white tips. Most obvious is the beige-colored body with black spots on the upper wings and a "pinkish wash" below, with reddish legs and feet.

Males and females are similar in appearance. The male has bright purple-pink patches on the neck and its crown is bluish-gray in color. The female has more brown coloring overall. It is a little smaller than the male.

The call is a mournful oowoo-woo-woo-woo. The bird flies fast on strong wingbeats, sometimes making swift ascents or descents with quick turns or dodges, its pointed tail stretching behind it. Wings produce a fluttering whistle as the bird takes flight.

You can find Mourning Doves at some point in the year in all continental states and into Canada and Mexico. You'll see them perched on telephone wires, on bare grounds or in fields. They only place you may not see them is in dense forests.

Seeds make up 99 percent of the Mourning Dove's diet, including grains and even peanuts, as well as wild grasses, weeds, herbs and occasionally berries. They sometimes eat snails. Mourning Doves eat roughly 12 to 20 percent of their body weight per day! Comparatively, a 180-pound man would need to eat 342 hard boiled eggs each day to match that 20 percent of body weight.

Mourning Doves tend to feed on the ground, but we have all seen them on hanging platform feeders or trying to get on small tube or hopper feeders, too. The birds will swallow seeds and store them in an enlargement of the esophagus, called a crop. Once they have filled it (the record is 17,200 bluegrass seeds in a single crop!), they fly to a safe perch to digest the meal.

Unique among birds, Mourning Doves drink without lifting their heads. Their beak serves as a straw.

Their nests are almost pathetic. They are a flimsy assembly of twigs, pine needles and grass stems about 8 inches long. There is little insulation for the young. So flimsy are the nests that they often fall apart during a strong wind or rainstorm. But they also can have five or six broods a year, incubating one batch of eggs while feeding fledglings. Generally two eggs are laid per brood. Chicks are fed "crop milk" regurgitated from the adults.

They sometimes will use a hanging basket for their nesting site which does the plant in the basket little good. They are persistent; sometimes it is easier to take a hanging basket, plant some spider plants or ivy, and just give it over to the birds.

The Mourning Dove is the most abundant game bird in North America. Every year hunters harvest more than 20 million birds, but the Mourning Dove remains one of our most abundant birds, with an estimated population of 350 million. The bird is on the "Least Concern" on the conservation list.