February 26, 1999

     Mourning Doves

Mourning doves are not usually thought of as winter birds; most head for the southern part of the United States for the frozen season.  Several people I know have a dozen or more mourning doves coming to their feeding stations in the Twin Cities area this winter.  This has become a trend for the past dozen years.  Reports from avid birdwatchers confirm that the mourning dove's winter range is moving north year by year.

Pairs of mourning doves are commonly seen in the summer on utility wires or picking up gravel on the ground along roadsides.  These birds are about a foot in length, have small heads and long, pointed tails.  They are gray and brown with their tails bordered with large, white spots.  The females are a bit smaller than the males.  Mourning doves flight is swift and direct while the whistling of the wings is diagnostic.

Mourning doves are ground-feeding birds with 98 percent of their diet consisting of seeds.  They also eat a few berries and insects.  Because of their seed diet they require a certain amount of grit.  They eat enormous numbers of the so-called weed seeds in fields and waste places at all seasons.  At feeding stations they like millet and cracket corn, scattered on the ground, preferably near trees and shrubs with low branches that offer good roosting and protective cover.