The mourning dove (''Zenaida macroura'') is a member of the dove
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
,
Columbidae
Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...
. The bird is also known as the American mourning dove, the rain dove, and colloquially as the turtle dove, and was once known as the Carolina pigeon and Carolina turtledove. It is one of the most abundant and widespread of all North American birds and a popular gamebird, with more than 20 million birds (up to 70 million in some years) shot annually in the U.S., both for sport and meat. Its ability to sustain its population under such pressure is due to its prolific breeding; in warm areas, one pair may raise up to six
broods
Broods is a New Zealand musical duo from Nelson, composed of Georgia Josiena Nott on lead vocals, with older brother and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Allan Joseph Nott on production and backing vocals. They released the single "Bridges", which w ...
of two young each in a single year. The wings make an unusual whistling sound upon take-off and landing, a form of
sonation
Sonation is the sound produced by birds, using mechanisms other than the syrinx. The term ''sonate'' is described as the deliberate production of sounds, not from the throat, but rather from structures such as the bill, wings, tail, feet and body ...
. The bird is a strong
flier, capable of speeds up to .
Mourning doves are light gray and brown and generally muted in color. Males and females are similar in appearance. The species is generally
monogamous, with two
squab
In culinary terminology, squab is an immature domestic pigeon, typically under four weeks old, or its meat. The meat is widely described as tasting like dark chicken. The term is probably of Scandinavian origin; the Swedish word ''skvabb'' mean ...
s (young) per brood. Both parents incubate and care for the young. Mourning doves eat almost exclusively seeds, but the young are fed
crop milk
Crop milk is a secretion from the lining of the crop of parent birds that is regurgitated to young birds. It is found among all pigeons and doves where it is referred to as pigeon milk. An analog to crop milk is also secreted from the esopha ...
by their parents. It is the
national bird
This is a list of national birds, including official birds of overseas territories and other states described as nations. Most species in the list are officially designated. Some species hold only an "unofficial" status.
National birds
See al ...
of the
British Virgin Islands
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
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.
Taxonomy
In 1731, the English naturalist
Mark Catesby
Mark Catesby (24 March 1683 – 23 December 1749) was an English naturalist who studied the flora and fauna of the New World. Between 1729 and 1747 Catesby published his ''Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands'', the fi ...
described and illustrated the
passenger pigeon
The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon (''Ectopistes migratorius'') is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word ''passager'', meaning "passing by", due to the migratory habits ...
and the mourning dove on successive pages of his ''The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands''. For the passenger pigeon he used the common name "Pigeon of passage" and the scientific Latin ''Palumbus migratorius''; for the mourning dove he used "Turtle of Carolina" and ''Turtur carolinensis''. In 1743 the naturalist
George Edwards included the mourning dove with the English name "long-tail'd dove" and the Latin name ''Columba macroura'' in his ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds''. Edwards's pictures of the male and female doves were drawn from live birds that had been shipped to England from the West Indies. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...
updated his ''
Systema Naturae'' for the
tenth edition, he conflated the two species. He used the Latin name ''Columba macroura'' introduced by Edwards as the
binomial name but included a description mainly based on Catesby. He cited Edwards's description of the mourning dove and Catesby's description of the passenger pigeon.
Linnaeus updated his ''Systema Naturae'' again in 1766 for the
twelfth edition. He dropped ''Columba macroura'' and instead coined ''Columba migratoria'' for the passenger pigeon, ''Columba cariolensis'' for the mourning dove and ''Columba marginata'' for Edwards's mourning dove.
[
To resolve the confusion over the binomial names of the two species, ]Francis Hemming
Arthur Francis Hemming, CMG, CBE (9 February 1893 – 22 February 1964) was an English entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera. He was mostly known, both professionally and socially, by his middle-name as Francis Hemming.
Hemming was a Bri ...
proposed in 1952 that the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) secure the specific name ''macroura'' for the mourning dove and ''migratorius'' for the passenger pigeon, since this was the intended use by the authors on whose work Linnaeus had based his description. This was accepted by the ICZN, which used its plenary powers to designate the species for the respective names in 1955.
The mourning dove is now placed in the genus ''Zenaida Zenaida (Greek name meaning "Life of Zeus.") Zenaide (Italian), Zénaïde ( French), or Zinaida (russian: Зинаида). '', introduced in 1838 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte, commemorating his wife Zénaïde. The specific epithet is from the Ancient Greek ''makros'' meaning "long" and ''-ouros'' meaning "-tailed".
The mourning dove is closely related to the eared dove
The eared dove (''Zenaida auriculata'') is a New World dove. It is a resident breeder throughout South America from Colombia to southern Argentina and Chile, and on the offshore islands from the Grenadines southwards. It may be a relatively re ...
(''Zenaida auriculata'') and the Socorro dove (''Zenaida graysoni''). Some authorities consider them a superspecies, and the three birds are sometimes classified in the separate genus ''Zenaidura'', but the current classification has them as separate species in the genus ''Zenaida Zenaida (Greek name meaning "Life of Zeus.") Zenaide (Italian), Zénaïde ( French), or Zinaida (russian: Зинаида). ''. In addition, the Socorro dove has at times been considered conspecific with the mourning dove, though several differences in behavior, call, and appearance justify separation as two different species. While the three species do form a subgroup of ''Zenaida'', using a separate genus would interfere with the monophyly
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
of ''Zenaida'' by making it paraphyletic.
There are five subspecies:[
* ''Zenaida macroura marginella'' ( Woodhouse, 1852) – west Canada and west USA to south central Mexico
* ''Zenaida macroura carolinensis'' (]Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
, 1766) – east Canada and east USA, Bermuda
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
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, Bahama Islands
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...
* ''Zenaida macroura macroura'' (Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
, 1758) – (nominate subspecies) Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
and Haiti), Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
, Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
* ''Zenaida macroura clarionensis'' ( Townsend, CH, 1890) – Clarion Island
Isla Clarión, formerly called Santa Rosa, is the second largest, westernmost and most remote of Mexico's Revillagigedo Islands. The island is located west of Socorro Island and over from the Mexican mainland.
It has an area of and three pr ...
(off west Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
)
* ''Zenaida macroura turturilla'' ( Wetmore, 1956) – Costa Rica, west Panama
The ranges of most of the subspecies overlap a little, with three in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
or Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. The West Indian subspecies is found throughout the Greater Antilles
The Greater Antilles ( es, Grandes Antillas or Antillas Mayores; french: Grandes Antilles; ht, Gwo Zantiy; jam, Grieta hAntiliiz) is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, a ...
.["Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)", NRCS, p. 3] It has recently invaded the Florida Keys. The eastern subspecies is found mainly in eastern North America, as well as Bermuda
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
, song_type = National song
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and the Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...
. The western subspecies are found in western North America, including parts of Mexico. The Panamanian subspecies is in Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
. The Clarion Island subspecies is found only on Clarion Island
Isla Clarión, formerly called Santa Rosa, is the second largest, westernmost and most remote of Mexico's Revillagigedo Islands. The island is located west of Socorro Island and over from the Mexican mainland.
It has an area of and three pr ...
, off Mexico's Pacific coast.
The mourning dove is sometimes called the "American mourning dove" to distinguish it from the distantly related mourning collared dove (''Streptopelia decipiens'') of Africa. It was also formerly known as the "Carolina turtledove" and the "Carolina pigeon". The "mourning" part of its common name comes from its doleful call.
The mourning dove was thought to be the passenger pigeon's closest living relative on morphological grounds until genetic analysis showed ''Patagioenas
''Patagioenas'' is a genus of New World pigeons whose distinctness from the genus ''Columba'' was long disputed but ultimately confirmed. It is basal to the ''Columba''-''Streptopelia'' radiation. Their ancestors diverged from that lineage proba ...
'' pigeons are more closely related. The mourning dove was even suggested to belong to the same genus, ''Ectopistes'', and was listed by some authors as ''E. carolinensis''. The passenger pigeon (''Ectopistes migratorius'') was hunted to extinction in the early 1900s.
Description
The mourning dove is a medium-sized, slender dove approximately in length. Mourning doves weigh , usually closer to . The mourning dove has a wingspan of 37–45 cm. The elliptical wings are broad, and the head is rounded. Its tail is long and tapered ("macroura" comes from the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
words for "large" and "tail"). Mourning doves have perching feet, with three toes forward and one reversed. The legs are short and reddish colored. The beak
The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for foo ...
is short and dark, usually a brown-black hue.
The plumage is generally light gray-brown and lighter and pinkish below. The wings have black spotting, and the outer tail feathers are white, contrasting with the black inners. Below the eye is a distinctive crescent-shaped area of dark feathers. The eyes are dark, with light blue skin surrounding them. The adult male has bright purple-pink patches on the neck sides, with light pink coloring reaching the breast. The crown of the adult male is a distinctly bluish-grey color. Females are similar in appearance, but with more brown coloring overall and a little smaller than the male. The iridescent feather patches on the neck above the shoulders are nearly absent but can be quite vivid on males. Juvenile birds have a scaly appearance and are generally darker.
Feather colors are generally believed to be relatively static, changing only by small amounts over periods of months. However, a 2011 study argued that since feathers have neither nerves or blood vessels, color changes must be caused by external stimuli. Researchers analyzed how feathers of iridescent mourning doves responded to stimulus changes of adding and evaporating water. As a result, it was discovered that iridescent feather color changed hue, became more chromatic, and increased overall reflectance by almost 50%. Transmission electron microscopy
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a g ...
and thin-film models revealed that color is produced by thin-film interference
Thin-film interference is a natural phenomenon in which light waves reflected by the upper and lower boundaries of a thin film interfere with one another, either enhancing or reducing the reflected light. When the thickness of the film is an ...
from a single layer of keratin
Keratin () is one of a family of structural fibrous proteins also known as ''scleroproteins''. Alpha-keratin (α-keratin) is a type of keratin found in vertebrates. It is the key structural material making up scales, hair, nails, feathers, ho ...
around the edge of feather barbules, under which lies a layer of air and melanosome
A melanosome is an organelle found in animal cells and is the site for synthesis, storage and transport of melanin, the most common light-absorbing pigment found in the animal kingdom. Melanosomes are responsible for color and photoprotection i ...
s. Once the environmental conditions were changed, the most striking morphological difference was a twisting of colored barbules that exposed more of their surface area for reflection, which explains the observed increase in brightness. Overall, the researchers suggest that some plumage colors may be more changeable than previously thought possible.
All five subspecies of the mourning dove look similar and are not easily distinguishable. The nominate subspecies possesses shorter wings and are darker and more buff-colored than the "average" mourning dove. ''Z. m. carolinensis'' has longer wings and toes, a shorter beak, and is darker in color. The western subspecies has longer wings, a longer beak, shorter toes, and is more muted and lighter in color. The Panama mourning dove has shorter wings and legs, a longer beak, and is grayer in color. The Clarion Island subspecies possesses larger feet, a larger beak, and is darker brown in color.
Vocalization
This species' call is a distinctive, plaintive ', uttered by males to attract females, and may be mistaken for the call of an owl
Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
at first. (Close up, a grating or throat-rattling sound may be heard preceding the first coo.) Other sounds include a nested call (') by paired males to attract their female mates to the nest sites, a greeting call (a soft ') by males upon rejoining their mates, and an alarm call (a short '', '') by either male or female when threatened. In-flight, the wings make a fluttery whistling sound that is hard to hear. The wing whistle is much louder and more noticeable upon take-off and landing.
Distribution and habitat
The mourning dove has a large range
Range may refer to:
Geography
* Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra)
** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands
* Range, a term used to i ...
of nearly . The species is resident throughout the Greater Antilles
The Greater Antilles ( es, Grandes Antillas or Antillas Mayores; french: Grandes Antilles; ht, Gwo Zantiy; jam, Grieta hAntiliiz) is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, a ...
, most of Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, the Continental United States
The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
, southern Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, and the Atlantic archipelago of Bermuda
)
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. Much of the Canadian prairie sees these birds in summer only, and southern Central America sees them in winter only.["Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)", NRCS, p. 2.] The species is a vagrant
Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...
in northern Canada, Alaska, and South America. It has been spotted as an accidental at least seven times in the Western Palearctic
The Western Palaearctic or Western Palearctic is part of the Palaearctic realm, one of the eight biogeographic realms dividing the Earth's surface. Because of its size, the Palaearctic is often divided for convenience into two, with Europe, North ...
with records from the British Isles (5), the Azores (1) and Iceland (1). In 1963, the mourning dove was introduced to Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
, and in 1998 there was still a small population in North Kona. The mourning dove also appeared on Socorro Island
Socorro Island ( es, Isla Socorro) is a small volcanic island in the Revillagigedo Islands, a Mexican possession lying off the country's western coast. The size is 16.5 by 11.5 km (10.25 by 7.15 miles), with an area of . It is the largest ...
, off the western coast of Mexico, in 1988, sixteen years after the Socorro dove was extirpated
Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...
from that island.
The mourning dove occupies a wide variety of open and semi-open habitats, such as urban areas, farms, prairie, grassland, and lightly wooded areas. It avoids swamps and thick forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
.
Migration
Most mourning doves migrate along flyway
A flyway is a flight path used by large numbers of birds while migrating between their breeding grounds and their overwintering quarters. Flyways generally span continents and often pass over oceans. Although applying to any species of migrat ...
s over land. Birds in Canada migrate the farthest, probably wintering in Mexico or further south. Those that spend the summer further south are more sedentary, with much shorter migrations. At the southern part of their range, Mourning Doves are present year-round.
Spring migration north runs from March to May. Fall migration south runs from September to November, with immatures moving first, followed by adult females and then by adult males. Migration is usually during the day, in flocks, and at low altitudes.
Behaviour and ecology
Mourning doves sunbathe or rain bathe by lying on the ground or a flat tree limb, leaning over, stretching one wing, and keeping this posture for up to twenty minutes. These birds can also water bathe in shallow pools or birdbaths. Dustbathing is common as well.
Outside the breeding season, mourning doves roost communally in dense deciduous
In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...
trees or conifers. During sleep, the head rests between the shoulders, close to the body; it is not tucked under the shoulder feathers as in many other species. During the winter in Canada, roosting flights to the roosts in the evening, and out of the roosts in the morning, are delayed on colder days.
Breeding
Courtship
Courtship is the period wherein some couples get to know each other prior to a possible marriage. Courtship traditionally may begin after a betrothal and may conclude with the celebration of marriage. A courtship may be an informal and private m ...
begins with a noisy flight by the male, followed by a graceful, circular glide with outstretched wings and head down. After landing, the male will approach the female with a puffed-out breast, bobbing head, and loud calls. Mated pairs will often preen each other's feathers.
The male then leads the female to potential nest sites, and the female will choose one. The female dove builds the nest. The male will fly about, gather material, and bring it to her. The male will stand on the female's back and give the material to the female, who then builds it into the nest. The nest is constructed of twigs, conifer needles, or grass blades, and is of flimsy construction. Mourning doves will sometimes requisition the unused nests of other mourning doves, other birds, or arboreal mammals such as squirrels.["Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)", NRCS, p. 4]
Most nests are in trees
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are u ...
, both deciduous and coniferous. Sometimes, they can be found in shrubs, vine
A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners themsel ...
s, or on artificial constructs like buildings, or hanging flower pots. When there is no suitable elevated object, mourning doves will nest on the ground.
The clutch size is almost always two eggs
Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...
. Occasionally, however, a female will lay her eggs in the nest of another pair, leading to three or four eggs in the nest.["Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)", NRCS, p. 1] The eggs are white, , long, wide, at laying (5–6% of female body mass). Both sexes incubate, the male from morning to afternoon, and the female the rest of the day and at night. Mourning doves are devoted parents; nests are very rarely left unattended by the adults.
File:Mourning Dove Egg.JPG, Egg in nest
File: Mourning Dove Nesting 20060630.JPG, Nesting in progress
File: Mourning Dove Chicks 20060701.JPG, Squabs
File: Zenaida macroura2.jpg, A juvenile
Incubation takes two weeks. The hatched young, called squabs, are strongly altricial
In biology, altricial species are those in which the young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, but with the aid of their parents mature after birth. Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the mome ...
, being helpless at hatching and covered with down. Both parents feed the squabs pigeon's milk (dove's milk) for the first 3–4 days of life. Thereafter, the crop milk is gradually augmented by seeds. Fledging
Fledging is the stage in a flying animal's life between hatching or birth and becoming capable of flight.
This term is most frequently applied to birds, but is also used for bats. For altricial birds, those that spend more time in vulnerable c ...
takes place in about 11–15 days, before the squabs are fully grown but after they are capable of digesting adult food. They stay nearby to be fed by their father for up to two weeks after fledging.
Mourning doves are prolific breeders. In warmer areas, these birds may raise to six broods in a season. This fast breeding is essential because mortality is high. Each year, mortality can reach 58% a year for adults and 69% for the young.
The mourning dove is generally monogamous and forms strong pair bonds.
Feeding
Mourning doves eat almost exclusively seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...
s, which make up more than 99% of their diet. Rarely, they will eat snail
A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...
s or insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
s. Mourning doves generally eat enough to fill their crops and then fly away to digest while resting. They often swallow grit such as fine gravel or sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...
to assist with digestion
Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food molecules into small water-soluble food molecules so that they can be absorbed into the watery blood plasma. In certain organisms, these smaller substances are absorbed through the small intest ...
. The species usually forages on the ground, walking but not hopping. At bird feeders, mourning doves are attracted to one of the largest ranges of seed types of any North American bird, with a preference for rapeseed, corn, millet, safflower
Safflower (''Carthamus tinctorius'') is a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual plant in the family Asteraceae. It is commercially cultivated for vegetable oil extracted from the seeds and was used by the early Spanish colonies along ...
, and sunflower seeds. Mourning doves do not dig or scratch for seeds, though they will push aside ground litter; instead, they eat what is readily visible. They will sometimes perch on plants and eat from there.
Mourning doves show a preference for the seeds of certain species of plant over others. Foods taken in preference to others include pine
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts ...
nuts, sweetgum seeds, and the seeds of pokeberry, amaranth, canary grass
Canary grass is a plant, ''Phalaris canariensis'', belonging to the family Poaceae. Originally a native of the Mediterranean region, it is now grown commercially in several parts of the world for birdseed.
Description
''Phalaris canariensis' ...
, corn, sesame, and wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
. When their favorite foods are absent, mourning doves will eat the seeds of other plants, including buckwheat
Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), or common buckwheat, is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as ''Fagopy ...
, rye, goosegrass and smartweed
''Polygonum'' is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plant in the buckwheat and knotweed family Polygonaceae. Common names include knotweed and knotgrass (though the common names may refer more broadly to plants from Polygonaceae). In the ...
.
Predators and parasites
The primary predators of this species are diurnal birds of prey
Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and other smaller birds). In addition to speed and strength, these predat ...
, such as falcon
Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene.
Adult falcons ...
s and hawks. During nesting, corvid
Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In colloquial English, they are known as the crow family or corvids. Currently, ...
s, grackle
Grackles is the common name of any of 11 passerine birds (10 extant and one extinct) native to North and South America. They belong to various genera in the icterid family. In all the species with this name, adult males have black or mostly blac ...
s, housecat
The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members o ...
s, or rat snake
Rat snakes are members – along with kingsnakes, milk snakes, vine snakes and indigo snakes – of the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae. They are medium to large constrictors and are found throughout much of the Northern Hemi ...
s will prey on their eggs. Cowbird
Cowbirds are birds belonging to the genus ''Molothrus'' in the family Icteridae. They are of New World origin, and are obligate brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species.
The genus was introduced by English naturalist Will ...
s rarely parasitize mourning dove nests. Mourning doves reject slightly under a third of cowbird eggs in such nests, and the mourning dove's vegetarian diet is unsuitable for cowbirds.
Mourning doves can be afflicted with several different parasite
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...
s and diseases, including tapeworm
Eucestoda, commonly referred to as tapeworms, is the larger of the two subclasses of flatworms in the class Cestoda (the other subclass is Cestodaria). Larvae have six posterior hooks on the scolex (head), in contrast to the ten-hooked Cesto ...
s, nematodes, mites, and Bird louse, lice. The mouth-dwelling parasite ''Trichomonas gallinae'' is particularly severe. While a mourning dove will sometimes host it without symptoms, it will often cause yellowish growth in the mouth and esophagus that will eventually Starvation, starve the host to death. Avian pox is a common, insect-Vector (epidemiology), vectored disease.["Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)", NRCS, p. 6]
Conservation status
The number of individual mourning doves was estimated to be approximately 475 million in 1994, and to have shown a small increase since. The large population and its vast range explain why the mourning dove is considered to be of least concern, meaning that the species is not at immediate risk. As a Game (food), gamebird, the mourning dove is well-managed, with more than 20 million (and up to 40–70 million) shot by hunters each year. However, more recent reporting cautions that mourning doves are in decline in the western United States, and susceptible everywhere in the country due to lead poisoning as they eat spent shot leftover in hunting fields. In some cases, the fields are specifically planted with a favored seed plant to lure them to those sites.
In culture
A Wyandot people, Huron/Wyandot legend tells of a maiden named Ayu'ra (probably more accurately spelled Iohara, a common Iroquois girl's name today) who used to care for the bird, who came to love her a great deal. One day, she became sick and died. As her spirit traveled across the land to the entrance to the Underworld, all the doves followed her and tried to gain entrance into the Underworld alongside her. Sky Woman, the deity who guards this door, refused them entry, eventually creating smoke to blind them and take Ayu'ra's spirit away without their knowledge. The smoke stained their feathers gray and they have been in mourning for the maiden's loss ever since. The logic behind the story is a play on words—the sound many Native Americans attributed to the bird was "howe howe," and this is also the sound the Iroquoian peoples used to chant over the dead at funerary events.
The eastern mourning dove (''Z. m. carolinensis'') is Wisconsin's official symbol of peace. The bird is also Michigan's state bird of peace.
The mourning dove appears as the Carolina turtle-dove on plate 286 of John James Audubon, Audubon's ''Birds of America (book), Birds of America''.
References to mourning doves appear frequently in Native American literature. Mourning Dove was the pen name of Christine Quintasket, one of the first published Native American women authors. Mourning dove imagery also turns up in contemporary American and Canadian poetry in the work of poets as diverse as Robert Bly, Jared Carter (poet), Jared Carter, Lorine Niedecker, and Charles Wright (poet), Charles Wright.[Meditation on Song and Structure]
from ''Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems'' by Charles Wright (poet), Charles Wright
References
Cited texts
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External links
Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the mourning dove
– USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
Mourning dove Movies
(Tree of Life)
Mourning Dove: Breed Guide
Pigeonpedia.com
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{{Authority control
Zenaida, mourning dove
Game birds
Birds of North America
Birds of the United States
Birds of Mexico
Birds of the Caribbean
Birds of Hispaniola
Birds of the Dominican Republic
Birds of Haiti
Articles containing video clips
Birds described in 1758, mourning dove
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus, mourning dove
Extant Pleistocene first appearances