Thursday, July 2, 2009

mourning dove ~ 07/02/09 ~ at home

mourning dove on coast Douglas fir
Zenaida macroura on Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii
Pinaceae

Funny, but I always thought of these as "morning" doves since I hear them calling in the mornings. While we see them regularly on telephone wires around town, this was the first time I saw one from our balcony perched in the tree.

3 comments:

NatureStop said...

Nice image!

Unknown said...

these birds were once abundant in the palo alto area. whole flocks of mourning doves would decent into a backyard offering up a free meal beneath a bird feeder. in the last 7 years their numbers have declined to almost non existent as at the same time the raven population has exploded. ravens can live to be 30 years old and their ability to eat human trash keeps their numbers healthy and high. they also never give up on nest robbing and as the doves often nest quite exposed they are easy targets. a landscape designer once told me large numbers of ravens were one of the first signs of the degradation of the environment.

i have thoroughly enjoyed your blog this evening. thank you for all the time and effort you have put into it. ls

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Hi Linda. Do you have a blog, too? I appreciate your kind compliments.

I'm not sure I can tell the difference between a raven and a crow. Naturally, I looked into it. I thought you might find the following link interesting, make sure to check out "Since the crows came we don't have any little birds around anymore!": http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/crowfaq.htm#compens