The Mourning Dove is a plump gray-brown bird with a pointed tail.  The head is small and slender and the wings which make a whistling sound in flight have black spots and are tipped with white.  They have benefited from human practice of cutting down forests and are among the most common of American birds ranging throughout the United States up the Pacific coast into Alaska.   About the only place in the United States that you do not find the Mourning Doves is in wetlands or dense forests.  They are year round residents except in the northern most reaches of their breeding range and as far south as Panama.

Everyone loves the dove, the traditional bird of peace, albeit for vastly different reasons. Most folks like to just sit and watch them, or listen to their melancholy notes. But in many states the mourning dove is a game bird, pursued by those who find pleasure in shooting them.  In Ohio, this bird remains the topic of continuing debate between hunters and bird lovers over the future of its legal status which is currently on the dove's side.

Doves are permanent residents in Hamilton County, Ohio.  Their breeding season extends from March to September.  The nest itself is one of the most fragile, being loosely constructed of small sticks by the female while the male brings the material to the nest.  The nest is so sparsely built that eggs can often be seen from below and when the incubating adult is frightened eggs can be knocked from the nest in a fluttering panic.  Ornamental evergreens in our yards are typical sites but doves often build in unusual places, sometimes even on the ground.   The bird is a common visitor underneath bird feeders as the diet consist almost entirely of seeds gleaned from the ground.

During courtship the male will perform an aerial display, gliding and spiraling with the wingtips held below the body.  On the ground, the male will strut before the female with feathers spread nodding its head.

Two white unmarked eggs about 1.1 inches long make up a clutch, which hatch in fourteen days.  Larger clutches are sometimes found but this usually indicates brood parasitism by other mourning doves.  After hatching you can see the young stick their heads far inside the adult's mouth to gorge on a unique food for their young called "pigeon milk".  It is rich in fat and protein and produced by a gland in the crop of adult pigeons and doves.  Within 6 to 8 days the young bird's diet consists entirely of seeds.  Both adults incubate (the male by day, and the female by night), brood and feed the young, which fly in another fourteen days.   At least 2 and as many as 6 broods are raised per year.  Mourning doves are among the fastest fliers having been clocked over fifty miles per hour.

Length 10-12 inches