The Mourning Dove, our February Bird of the Month, is one of our most widespread and common backyard birds, breeding in all fifty states of the U.S.…but this beautiful bird that is to many a symbol of peace is anything but “common.” Originally a bird of southern North America and confined to scattered locations of suitable habitat, the mourning dove population exploded as the settling of America created more grasslands, farmland, and open ground perfect for doves to thrive. Today, you can see mourning doves nearly anywhere, in cities, backyards, farms, deserts, and open woodlands from Panama to southern Canada. They are even found in Hawaii, Alaska, and the West Indies.

Mourning doves are seed eaters, and unlike most other birds in North America, they almost never eat insects. They are well adapted to gleaning and digesting grass, crop, and weed seeds they find on the ground. As most backyard birders know, they will also come to platform and tray feeders that are close to the ground and stocked with their favorites, cracked corn, sunflower chips, or millet. They will also come to almost any seed blend, preferring those without shells. If you’ve ever watched doves at your feeders, you know they have an impressive appetite, consuming more than 20% of their body weight each day. And they have a unique way of feeding, gleaning seeds off the ground or a feeder into their “crops,” specialized pockets in their esophagus, that store the seeds for later digestion. After feeding, doves will often retreat to a secluded perch to digest the seeds collected in their crops. One record-breaking dove was found to have stuffed away more than 17,000 bluegrass seeds in its crop! Mourning doves are also unique in the bird world in that they can drink a long, continuous stream of water, and are able to get an entire day’s supply of water in one sitting.

Mourning doves lay two eggs in a nest on the ground, and after they hatch, both parents provide their hatchlings “crop milk,” a rich mixture of cells sloughed off the wall of their crops. Baby doves will feed by taking crop milk directly from their parents’ crops. Crop milk is highly nutritious, rich in protein and fat, and is the consistency of cottage cheese, allowing baby doves to grow quickly and to fledge in a mere 14 days after hatching! By the time they fledge, young doves have fully transitioned to eating and digesting seeds just like their parents.

As “southern” birds, mourning doves are not well-adapted to our harsh northern winters, so many will migrate short distances to find a more favorable climate. Yet many will stay here throughout the winter, braving sub-zero temperatures and frost-bitten toes to gain a slight advantage at breeding time. The doves you see at your feeders in winter are not the same ones you see in summer. When doves migrate in the fall, the young leave first, then the adult females, and finally the adult males. But some of the males stay behind and don’t migrate at all. It’s these male birds you that see at your feeders during the winter. This gives these birds a head start on establishing a good breeding territory when the females return in the spring. It’s often this head start that allows some mourning dove pairs to have two or sometimes three broods a year here in the North.

There are estimated to be more than 345 million mourning doves in North America. Of those that make it to adulthood, their average life span is about 11 years; the oldest known mourning dove was more than 30 years old!  Mourning doves are monogamous and usually mate for life. As Valentine’s Day approaches, it’s common to see mated pairs of mourning doves cuddling together or exchanging gifts of twigs or food, courting behavior that gives them the affectionate name “turtle doves.” Their soft “cooing” sound is soothing to hear and lends a sense of peacefulness to those who listen and is why doves are often associated with peace. Welcome these beautiful and peaceful birds to your backyard with seed, water, and a lot of love.

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