Mourning Dove

For the past couple (few?) winters I've been scattering food on the ground to feed the Dark-eyed Juncos that winter near me. This year a couple other birds have taken notice; here's a Mourning Dove that dropped by for a bite to eat.

I'm a little surprised 1) That I haven't seen these birds come by before, and 2) That even now that they've discovered the food source, they still don't come by all that often. Certainly Mourning Doves are plentiful in the area, and they are happy to feed off the ground.

One thing you will notice if they're out there with the Dark-eyed Juncos is that while we think of both of these as "little birds", the Mourning Dove is a much larger bird.

While most of the birds we see around are passerines (e.g. crows/jays, robins, sparrows, warblers), the doves/pigeons are not. They are columbids, and are more distantly related to most of the bird feeder birds.

March 2021 at Finderne

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