From Opus

Photo by Screech

Zenaida macroura

[edit] Identification

• Light brown overall
• Gray crown
• Black mark on neck/cheek
• Black spots on coverts
• Dark primaries
• Long tail
  • Inner feathers longest
  • Outer feathers tipped white

Males have a rosy pink iridescence on their neck.
Wings whistle during take-off.

[edit] Distribution

Abundant and widespread across the USA and southern Canada from southern Alaska and British Columbia to Nova Scotia and south to Central America. A partial migrant with many birds in the north of the range moving south in August-September and returning north in April-May.

Has been recorded as a vagrant in Greenland. Extremely rare in the Western Palearctic, recorded twice in the British Isles, on the Isle of Man in October 1989 and in the Outer Hebrides in November 1999. Also, one in Iceland in October 1995 and one in Sweden in June 2001.

[edit] Habitat

Open woodlands and cultivation, farmyards and gardens in towns.

[edit] Taxonomy

[edit] Subspecies^[1]

• Z. m. macroura Mourning Dove (Caribbean):

• Cuba, Isle of Pines, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Jamaica

Carolinensis Group (Mainland)

• Z. m. marginella':

• British Columbia to Baja California, western US and south-central Mexico

• Z. m. carolinensis:

• Eastern US, Bahamas and Bermuda

• Z. m. clarionensis:

• Isla Clarión (Revillagigedo Islands off western Mexico)

• Z. m. turturilla:

• Costa Rica and western Panama

[edit] Behaviour

Common visitor to backyard bird feeders.

[edit] Vocalisation

A low series of coos ooo-a-ooo oooo ooo ooo

[edit] References

1. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.

• List of references

[edit] External Links