Wing coverts, tertiaries, scapulars and upper back feathers are brownish grey with pale tips and dark centres, creating a speckled appearance. The main flight feathers are dark grey, faintly tinged brown. Its distinguishing feature is a large white-spotted black half-collar around the back and sides of the neck. The spotted dove is a medium-sized, somewhat long-tailed dove with a greyish head, pink-grey underparts, and speckled greyish brown upperparts. Recent molecular genetic studies suggest that this species and the African laughing dove form a distinct group within the genus Streptopelia, leading some authorities to put them in a separate genus, Stigmatopelia. No doubt this population has been supplemented periodically by other releases and escapes from captivity. Lifelong birder Jim Williams can be reached at Join his conversation about birds at /wingnut.A native of south and south-east Asia, the spotted dove was introduced to New Zealand in the 1920s, when some were released from captivity in Mt Eden, Auckland. Weather, predation and accidents temper the population. Mourning doves on average live 18 months, hunted or not. The daily possession limit here is 15 birds. Minnesota reinstated a dove hunting season in 2004 after a 57-year hiatus. Hunting is said to harvest about 15% of that number. Mourning doves are the most common game bird in the U.S., a recent fall population estimated at 350 million. Toss millet, cracked corn or other grain on the ground or offer it on a platform feeder. You can build nesting platforms for doves, simple hardware-cloth cones that might attract the birds to your yard. I’ve seen one such nest, and flimsy was a complimentary term. The birds nest in dense shrubs or evergreens, building flimsy constructions of sticks and twigs. In Minnesota, nesting twice a year is probable. There are 11 dove species in North America, those mentioned plus Key West quail-dove, ringed turtle dove, rock dove (aka common pigeon), ruddy ground dove, and spotted and white-tipped doves.ĭepending on weather, mourning doves can nest as often as six times a year. We have been visited in very small numbers by three other North American doves - Inca dove, common ground-dove, and white-winged dove. The birds soon found Florida, spreading then throughout North America. In 1974 a few dozen escaped captivity in the Bahamas. The population had spread to England by 1953. In the early 19th century the collared-dove was confined to subtropical Asia. The collared dove is larger, lighter in color, with a distinctive black collar. It shares a grain diet with the mourning dove. The Eurasian collared-dove also is listed as regular here, most often seen in towns with grain elevators. The bird has been documented as nesting in 82 of our 87 counties. They are common in the metro area in winter. They also overwinter, adding variety to bird feeders. Mourning doves migrate, their spring return peaking in early May. That’s determined by annual counts for what is known as the breeding bird survey, a statewide census by volunteers. The doves are found throughout the continent, a stable population in the East, declining in the West.īob Janssen in his new book “Birds in Minnesota” says the species is declining here. Red-winged blackbirds would be second, or first, depending on who does the estimating. Estimates vary widely, though, from 175 million to 450 million. Mourning doves are thought by some researchers to be the most common native bird in North America (replacing the passenger pigeon, both members of the same family). Evening, quiet neighborhood, doves calling from power lines above our street. That’s the call I remember hearing as a kid in Robbinsdale. This is repeated and repeated (and repeated) from a perch, beginning shortly before sunrise and again at dusk. Unmated males sing what ornithologists call an advertising call - a long soft coo followed by two or three louder coos. Hard to imagine the caw of a crow coming from a bird that looks like a dove.ĭoves do not have an extensive vocal repertoire coo sums it up. Mourning doves sound just like they look - soft, shy, gentle.
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