Nature Note #164: Morning Dove

I was visited by a mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) this morning. No doubt as soon as some of you read the title, you were annoyed as any proper birder would be. Upon reading it, the thought; "it's pronounced "mourning" not "morning"!", flashed through your mind with unforgivable zeal.

Perhaps I'm being too presumptive. Maybe. Mourning doves are a common backyard bird found over most of the United States and are one of two species of pigeon that can be found in New York state. The other is the ubiquitous rock pigeon (or dove depending on the age of your field guide) that I see everyday stealing grain from the ducks on the zoo's main pond or soaring v-winged over the skyscrapers and ruined factory buildings of downtown Syracuse.

While we've been visited by pigeons every once in a while, the bird that visited this morning was a juvenile. The plumage on this bird is scalloped and a little unkempt. It likely hatched out a month ago and had only recently fledged from their nest. A quick visit to Cornell's All About Birds reveals how short the incubation and in nest residence of these birds is. If we presume that this bird is exactly 1 month old, it's mother probably laid the egg around April 7th and our mourning dove hatched out two weeks later. Two weeks after that, the bird had fledged and happened to land outside my window this morning. That's an amazingly short amount of time for a bird to grow up and leave home. It certainly makes it seem like raising human babies takes an eternity!

The dove poked around the roof top for about five minutes before flying off. While I get to see adult mourning doves on a regular basis, it's nice to be able to see the young of the year fluttering around as well. I hope this one makes it to the next spring to raise it's own batch of early risers too.

Hope everyone has a lovely Thursday and I'll see you all on Saturday!