How do I attract Mourning Doves?

Mourning Doves are a favorite backyard songbird. They're fun to watch as they strut around, looking for food on the ground. Their plump bodies and long tails are quite a sight, yet their coloration is delicate and handsome. When startled, they take off fast on powerful wingbeats, making a whistling sound.

But perhaps the greatest attraction is their call. It's a mournful oowoo-woo-woo-woo. You can always tell that mourning doves are in the neighborhood when you hear that soothing call.

Mourning Doves tend not to migrate, so you're bound to see or hear them at any time of year.

Attracting Mourning Doves to your backyard is relatively easy.

Their favorite foods are white millet, sunflower seed, sunflower chips, safflower seed, cracked corn and wheat. Mourning Doves prefer to feed on flat surfaces on the ground. They seem content pecking for seed. They may push aside ground litter but they won't upturn the ground itself.

Mourning Doves readily come to platform feeders, whether on the ground or hanging from a pole or tree limb. They welcome fly-through feeders. They will try to eat from covered hopper feeders, but their landings are awkward. It's like having a jumbo jet trying to land on an ocean-going aircraft carrier. You can help them by placing a seed catcher beneath the hopper feeder.

Adding a tray to a tube feeder enable Mourning Doves to eat

Mourning Doves are frequent visitors to bird baths.

The doves don't nest in bird houses. They prefer a ramshackle collection of twigs placed in the crotches of trees or shrubs. However, they have been known to nest in hanging baskets intended for outdoor plants. 

Entice them to a hanging basket by adding soil and topping it off with some white pine needles. Hang the basket under a porch or beneath the eves of a roof. If you'd like to co-exist with birds and plants, try planting ivy in the hanging basket; the Mourning Doves will use the top while the ivy will cascade down toward the ground. Be careful when trying to water the plant, though!

Make sure to keep cats indoors and watch for stray cats in your neighborhood. Because Mourning Doves spend so much time on the ground, they are vulnerable to prowling cats.

If Mourning Doves become too numerous for you to handle, you can discourage them from feeding (The birds can get a bit messy). Offer seed in hanging tube-style feeders. Smaller birds will visit, but the doves are too large and too clumsy to perch on these feeders. However, they do welcome any seed that other birds knock to the ground.

Feeding Mourning Doves will add a great deal of enjoyment to your birding world. They typically stay on the ground or on a feeder for a longer period of time than other birds, so you'll get a better opportunity to watch and study them.