Adult Mourning Dove on barbed wire, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah

Mourning Dove Images, Facts and Information:

Zenaida macroura

  • Mourning Doves are medium sized doves with gray-brown upperparts, pinkish underparts, they have black eyes with light blue orbital rings, long, slender pointed tails, black spots on their wings, and dark bills.
  • Some Mourning Doves are migratory, the majority are non-migratory.
  • Mourning Doves can be found in open fields, parks, yards, deserts, grasslands, woodlots and agricultural fields. They can be found from southeastern Alaska south to Mexico.
  • The diet of Mourning Doves is primarily seeds though they also consume grains, fruits, insects and leafy vegetation.
  • Mourning Doves lay 2 eggs which hatch in 14 days. Both sexes incubate and they are monogamous. Females do “dump” their eggs in other Mourning Dove nests and nests with more than two eggs are usually the result of this “dumping”.
  • A group of doves can be called a “flight”, “cote”, “dole” and “bevy” of doves.
  • The oldest known wild Mourning Dove was just over 30 years of age.

I hope you enjoy viewing my Mourning Dove photos.