White-winged doves hold great symbolic importance in various cultures across the world.Many people find these mourning birds even more beautiful than white doves. These nesting birds are a delicate shade of brown, giving them a majestic appearance.Unlike other doves, you will find these doves sleeping in different positions. This bird’s head rests between its shoulders and close to its body. Mourning doves are closely related to passenger pigeons and have a special place in folklore and mythology. Above everything, they have an average lifespan of anywhere between two to five years in the wild.Doves are delicate, beautiful birds. The mourning dove is no different. You can find them sitting in woodland edges or scattered trees. Mourning doves are known to mate for life and have sometimes been reported to take care of a dead mate. There are many interesting facts about these doves that are worth knowing, starting from their diet to their lifestyle.Aren’t you curious to know about their feeding, breeding, and nesting behaviors? We will discuss this information here. Without further ado, let us dive right in. After you have finished reading this article, check out our fun facts about dove symbolism and mourning dove symbolism.Mourning Doves’ DietsThere are different types of pigeons. One such species of pigeons are mourning doves. When it comes to diet, what do mourning doves eat? Read on for the answer.Mourning doves eat a variety of things. A major part of what mourning doves eat mainly consists of seeds. Around 99% of the mourning dove’s diet consists of seeds. The different range of seeds includes weed seeds, bird seeds, and various other food seeds. Mourning doves eat other things apart from just seeds. Apart from seeds, their favorite foods are cultivated grains, wild grasses, weeds, herbs, cracked corn, and berries. In the wild, doves will eat foods such as seeds, greens, fruits, and insects.Even though they are primarily herbivorous birds, mourning doves are also seen eating snails and small insects too. Mourning doves will eat around 12-20% of their body weight every day. Mourning doves are just like any other doves in terms of their diet, but they do eat a variety of seeds. The fact that a mourning dove will eat weed seeds is highly beneficial to humans, especially farmers. If a mourning dove eats weed seeds, the possibility of weeds growing is close to none. Also, unlike other birds, mourning doves prefer eating seeds that are lying in the ground.They prefer food or grains on the ground, but when the ground has less food, they resort to eating from bushes and trees. We cannot classify mourning doves as perfect herbivorous birds because these birds do eat grasshoppers, beetles, snails, and ants at times. If you want to attract mourning doves to your home to become backyard birds, then a proper bird feeder will do the trick. Since these birds love to eat food from the ground, a ground bird feeder is a way to get mourning doves’ attention. A cheaper and easier method is just scattering seeds on the ground.Another interesting fact about the feeding habits of mourning doves is that they don’t necessarily digest all the food that they seem to eat. Mourning doves eat seeds that are more than necessary for them. What they are doing is storing these food items. This bird species has an enlarged part in the esophagus known as the crop. In this crop, they store food to digest later.Can you keep mourning doves as pets?There are people who think of doves as a great pet option. So, when it comes to mourning doves, can they be good pets? Is it hard to take care of them? Let us explore the answers to these questions.In North America, you can face some serious trouble when keeping a mourning dove as a pet. It is not legal to adopt these birds and keep them in captivity across North America as they enjoy protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. These birds are found in zoos and aviaries throughout the world, as they get to live in suitable habitat conditions which are similar to their natural habitats. As mourning doves are wild birds, they can easily be found living in the wild.Mourning doves are wild birds and are very hard to domesticate. They are very social birds. You can find them in groups almost all of the time. Considering other birds of the same species, it might not be a great idea to make these birds pets because their habitat and lifestyle are more suited to the wild. These ground feeders can easily be taken care of in zoo settings since there is vast space available. They need to fly around to make their wings stronger.Also, mourning doves should be kept in groups. Since they need to strengthen their wings by flying around, it is important to provide an environment fit for that purpose. If a mourning bird is kept as a pet, there can be limitations that may make this bird uncomfortable. These species nest in places that are open or half-open. They don’t like dense forest areas to live in. Both the male and female weaves a nest, but they are pretty bad at it.Mourning doves are known for their tragic nest-construction skills. A nest may be seen hanging in shrubs and trees or sometimes even on the ground. The male carries twigs, pine needles, and grass stems to female mourning doves during the nesting season. Pine needles and twigs are used to make a nest. The female stays inside the nest and does not accompany other males in gathering nesting materials.Since the nests of these birds are messy, they can be easily confused for an abandoned nest. The mourning dove, like other doves, has no issue living in urbanized areas. In fact, these birds are frequently found near cities and farms, but when it comes to domesticating them, the process is not easy. These social birds need a group around them to thrive.If you wish to scare away mourning doves from your yard, then place plastic caricatures of larger birds and predators. These birds will simply leave your yard out of fright.What do mourning doves feed their chicks?The mourning dove nests for the breeding season. The breeding season is from February through to October. The female mourning dove will lay two eggs in a nest. There are almost always two eggs laid by a mourning dove.The incubation period for two eggs is around 14-15 days. After the eggs hatch, the baby mourning doves have a special diet.After hatching from their eggs, the eyes of the baby mourning doves are closed, and they are entirely dependent on their parents for care. A baby dove is covered in a down material that is ivory-colored. After reaching the age of two weeks, they undergo considerable growth and grow fluffy feathers.A baby mourning dove is fed crop milk. Mourning doves are great parents. Both the male and female will feed the juvenile birds. The crop milk of these bird species is what is initially fed to the baby doves. The crop milk is protein and fat-rich. It is secreted from the crop lining of the adult mourning dove and fed to the baby doves.The crop milk looks like cheese in appearance, but this crop milk diet is only provided to baby mourning doves for a few days. After a few days, preferably after four days, the baby mourning doves will start to feed on seeds. The way the diet of the baby mourning dove changes is fast. Now that they are well equipped to eat seeds, they are fed a variety of seeds. It’s not just the diet, in other aspects too. The young mourning dove is well equipped at an early age, as when the bird is 15 days old, it will leave the nest. By this time, the flying ability of the baby bird is only just getting started.They do not completely leave an area. A baby bird will be seen near its nest. The flying of the baby bird will be almost perfect in 30 days. After this, they will be completely independent and fly away from the nest. One of the most interesting facts is that when the mourning dove bird is 85 days old, it is capable of breeding. This is, without doubt, a fast-growing bird species. The whole nesting period of the baby bird is limited to a very few days.The baby mourning dove is called a ‘squab’ or ‘chick’. One of the biggest contributing factors to the fast growth of a chick is crop milk. The nutrition content in crop milk facilitates the fast growth of the mourning dove. However, for the chick, the nest is only a resting place for a short period of time. Initially, when the chicks are ready to eat seeds, they start off with small-sized ones. Gradually, mourning doves will start eating larger seeds.Are mourning doves predators?It is rare to find predator doves. Doves are often considered gentle and innocent. Are mourning doves the same? Is this dove predatory?Mourning doves are not exactly predators, but they won’t hesitate to kill another bird, especially the male mourning dove. You can often see a dove pair preening each other with gentle nibbles. When it comes to defending their territory, male mourning birds are an aggressive bunch. The male birds have cooing perches for themselves.If anyone else is seen around these perches, they will puff up their necks and start attacking these birds. The male birds will also defend the females. Apart from territorial aggression, these birds do not exhibit any predatory behavior. In fact, this bird is often targeted by others, especially humans. The natural predators of these birds are hawks, owls, snakes, and so on.Sometimes, even bad weather can cause serious harm to mourning doves. Bad weather can essentially destroy their already badly built nesting arrangements. One of the main reasons why mourning doves travel together is to protect themselves. If any potential threats arise, they may be able to defend one another. Another threat to this bird is poisonous substances on the ground. Since they peck ground litters, anything harmful lying in the ground will harm them considerably. However, the biggest predator of these doves is humans. Humans hunt mourning doves for two reasons. One is for fun, as it is kind of a sport for humans to hunt down pigeons and doves, and the second reason is for meat.Although dove meat is not widely eaten by humans, it is still popular among some. When a mourning dove is under attack, it will produce a warning whistle. It will whistle to alert the rest of the doves about the danger. Even though they are hunted and killed, the population decline of mourning doves is not a cause of concern. Due to the fast reproduction rate in these birds, the population of mourning doves has not been badly affected over the years.However, this doesn’t mean that they won’t be. It is important for human beings to realize that they need to protect and preserve the animals and birds living around them. Just because these birds are seen in abundance, it doesn’t mean that hunting some down would not harm the population. It will gradually decrease the number. As you might be aware, one little drop makes an ocean. So, one little step to stop the hunting of these beautiful mourning doves can bring about a lot of changes.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our facts about what mourning doves eat, then why not take a look at our facts about dove eggs or dove food?
White-winged doves hold great symbolic importance in various cultures across the world.
