Mourning Dove

Zenaida macroura
STANFORD LOCATIONS:

Common to abundant resident throughout campus. Highly flexible in its use of nesting substrates; nests in a variety of trees and shrubs but also uses planters, artificial ledges, the eaves of buildings, and even old nests of other species.
  
Nest
Location
Nest
Type
Eggs
Mating System
Dev.
Parental Care
Primary &
2ndary Diet
Foraging
Strategy
MF
I: 13-14 DAYS
ALTRICIAL
CONIF
GROUND
0 - 40 feet
MF
2
(2-3)
MONOG
F: 12-14 DAYS
MF
GRAIN
FOLIAGE GLEAN
BREEDING: Desert (near water) to open woodland, agricultural areas with scattered trees, suburbs. Typically 2-3, but occ 3-6 broods.
DISPLAYS: Courtship: male performs gliding, spiraling aerial display over female with wingtips held below body; on ground struts before female with feathers spread and head nodding.
NEST: In fork of horizontal tree branch, on ground, on deserted nest of other species, or anywhere else providing solid support; flimsy, usu of crossed sticks and twigs (occ grass, weed stems) lined with fine materials. Female builds but male brings materials. Built in 1 - 3 days; often reused.
EGGS: White, unmarked. 1.1" (28 mm).
DIET: Seeds, including waste grain from cultivated fields, compose >99% of diet. Young fed crop milk for 3 days, then also seeds; entirely seeds by 6-8 days.
CONSERVATION: Winters s to c Panama. Rare host of both cowbird species. Range expanding northward.
NOTES: Champion of multiple-brooding among N.A. birds. Most abundant dove in N.A.; most widely hunted and harvested game bird. Pair bonds occ persist >1 nesting season. Flock for much of year, but not colonial breeder. Eggs always covered: male incubates most of day, female remainder of day, all night. Clutches of 3-4 likely due to brood parasitism by another Mourning Dove. Males produce crop milk 4-6 days longer than females.
ESSAYS: Visual Displays; Feeding Birds; Bird Milk; Range Expansion; Brood Parasitism.
REFERENCES: Leopold et al., 1981; Leopold and Dedon, 1983; Westmoreland et al., 1986.

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Except for Stanford Locations, the material in this species treatment is taken, with permission, from The Birder's Handbook (Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, & Darryl Wheye, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1988).