MOURNING DOVE 
When the mate of a mourning dove dies, the surviving bird will hang its 
head, coo plaintively and search diligently for the missing one. Like other 
doves, mourning doves are monogamous and are most devoted mates. 
In winter they live in flocks, but with the coming of spring they 
scatter in pairs. At this season the male will circle about above the female 
with his tail extended. When on the ground he will strut about with his 
brown plumage spread wide, nodding his head and ogling to impress the 
passively watching female. The billing and cooing of amorous doves often 
awakens and infuriates the weary sleeper on bright spring mornings. Later 
on in their romance, male and female take regular turns in tending their 
eggs, the male sitting by day, his mate by night. It is to the turtle-dove that 
the biblical poet was referring when he wrote that the “voice of the turtle 
is heard in our lands.” 
Mourning doves make their nests in a great variety of sites, but the 
most typical location is on a horizontal branch of an evergreen tree, not 
far from the trunk. Sometimes another bird’s abandoned nest will serve 
as a foundation. The nest is built of sticks and lined with small twigs, 
while sometimes grasses and leaves also are used. The doves mate from 
May to August and sometimes bear two or three broods a summer. The eggs 
are usually two in number. The young are born naked and helpless and 
are cared for with great devotion by their parents. At this season the crops 
of the adult birds secrete a juice which renders their food digestible to 
the young and the parents feed their chicks by regurgitating this “ten¬ 
derized” nourishment. 
Doves usually make their homes near water. When thirsty, they alight 
in an open space near the stream or water hole, and then walk deliberately 
and gracefully to the drinking place. 
The dove’s flight is headlong and swift, and countless birds are killed 
by collision with telegraph wires. They are, in the main, migratory, flying 
south to the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies during the winter, return¬ 
ing to more temperate regions in spring. 
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