A mournful misnomer

I must admit that while I have worked long and hard to mellow with age, occasionally things get to me that probably shouldn’t. But week after week, month after month and year after year, I jogged past a road near our family’s home in Jacksonville, Florida, that simply ruffled my feathers. That’s because while there certainly are night herons, there are no morning doves. Morning Dove Drive drove me nuts!
 
How this affront to Zenaida macroura, the mourning dove, came to be I never learned, but I did learn to live with it. Though, since this is one of my favorite birds, it took me some time. Mourning doves are named for their mournful, cooing sounds, not for some preference for early rising. Their call is unmistakable and very common in our area. I recommend a Google search for “mourning dove call.”
 
This is the second year doves have nested in palm trees in our yard. And this year’s nest was special. The birds nested so close to our front porch rail that you could practically reach out and touch them. It was delightful watching the incubation, hatch and development of the brood.
 
Doves are tireless and prolific nesters. While they typically only have two young per brood, they might do so five or six times in one season. Both mom and dad incubate the eggs and feed the young. Until more “adult” foods can be digested, the parents produce “dove milk” in their crops, which they feed to the young birds for the first few days. In a couple of weeks, the newly hatched birds are out of the nest, and shortly after that they are off on their own.
 
This strong reproductive drive is a good thing because research indicates that mourning doves typically live about a year and a half. Predation, disease, hunting and various natural causes all take a toll. So many things eat doves or dove eggs – hawks, owls, snakes, raccoons, coyotes, other birds, and the list goes on. Their nests can be quite easy to find and accessible to predators, and most of what the adults like to eat requires that they feed on open ground.  
 
United States hunters harvest about 20 million doves per year, but the population seems generally indifferent and continues to be about 350 million. 
 
Doves like grass and plant seeds, millet, soybeans, wheat, peanuts, sunflowers, corn and many other foods. Recently, I have been seeing a lot of them in my driveway. We are inundated with acorns this year, and we are crushing a lot driving in and out. The birds seem very fond of the tiny acorn slivers produced.
 
For a bird whose first-year mortality is estimated to be around 60%, there are some amazing examples of longevity in mourning doves. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, one banded bird lived for over 30 years – an incredible feat. Young or old, doves are just a pleasure to have around. They aren’t striking or colorful like so many of our wild birds are, and they won’t dazzle us with the endless, varied songs of the mockingbird. But doves are graceful, both in their appearance and their flight, and that soft, mournful call is as pretty as any music. “Elegant” is the word I would choose to describe Zenaida macroura. Any description besides “morning” is probably just as good.
 

Daniel Island Publishing

225 Seven Farms Drive
Unit 108
Daniel Island, SC 29492 

Office Number: 843-856-1999
Fax Number: 843-856-8555

 

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