Listen to a recording of a Mourning Dove from the
Library of Natural Sounds:

The most abundant dove in the United States, the Mourning Dove is also the most widely hunted and harvested game bird. The name comes from the familiar, although easily overlooked song, a low-toned moaning cooah, coo, coo, coo. This dove, found across the United States and southern Canada, is most common throughout the Great Plains in the Midwest. In warm climates, these doves produce up to six broods per year, the most of any native bird. Typically, two eggs are laid in a nest made in an evergreen tree, although a wide variety of nest sites are used, including clumps of grass.

In winter, Mourning Doves prefer average minimum January temperatures greater than 10 degrees Fahrenheit; Rocky Mountain, Great Basin, and Great Plains birds may migrate to escape the cold. Mourning Doves also require a source of water; thus, peak abundances occur near rivers. In arid areas, large flocks visit water sources at dawn and dusk.

Mobile foraging flocks of Mourning Doves feed primarily on the ground, consuming waste grain—especially wheat and buckwheat—and weed seeds. Their crops fill quickly with seeds and digestion, aided by swallowed grit, occurs while the birds are resting, often in groups perched in trees or on wires. They readily come to feeders. Flocks are formed in every season, except while the birds are breeding—then, the birds disperse in pairs. When disturbed, Mourning Doves burst into strong, rapid flight on whistling wings.

Description: A Mourning Dove is a long (approximately 12 inches), slim, gray-brown bird with a small head and a long, pointed tail. The outer tail feathers have white tips with a black marking midway, so that the tail is edged with a black and white stripe. Wings show dark primaries, and wing coverts and scapulars are boldly spotted with black. The dove's crown, nape, and hindneck are slate in color, turning to grayish brown over the rest of the upperparts. The face is pinkish buff, the underparts have a pinkish wash, and the belly is buff-colored. Legs are reddish in color. The eye has a bluish ring of bare skin, and there is a small black spot and a larger iridescent purplish area on the side of the neck. This area is larger in males. Females have more brown coloring overall.

Of the other native doves, the Inca Dove of the Southwest and the Common Ground-Dove of the Southwest and Gulf States (both doves belong to genus Columbina) are much smaller and have chestnut markings on their wings. A White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica) is about the same size, but it has distinctive white patches on its wings that show in both flying and resting birds.

Recording credits:
Mourning Dove song recorded by William R. Fish LNS catalog # 22930.

Copyright 1999 Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Mourning Dove


Inca Dove

Common Ground Dove

White-winged Dove

To read about another dove species,
follow this link:
Eurasion Collared-Dove