“Morning” Doves

Some creatures are so common around our homes – sparrows and squirrels, for example - that we sometimes forget they are wildlife. Add mourning doves to the list for my backyard. Dozens of them feed and take shelter year round only a few yards from the bay window that looks out from the rear of my kitchen. I can count on seeing them each morning the same as I do my dog and my cats.

The mourning dove’s name doesn’t come from the time of day you might first see it – the morning – but from the male’s plaintive call to females. The species, part of the pigeon family, ranges throughout North America from Canada all the way to Panama. The bird itself is no more than a foot from head to tip of tail and weighs less than half a pound. Seeds make up the overwhelming bulk of its diet, which is why the dove is a regular at my backyard bird feeder seeking corn, millet and sunflower seeds. Having such an enormous range and ready food supply, the mourning dove population is estimated at nearly a half billion individuals.

The passenger pigeon was a close relative of the mourning dove. Biologists believe that it numbered several billion animals in the 19^th century – the most abundant bird on the continent. Unfortunately, uncontrolled hunting drove the species to extinction early in the 20^th century.