White-winged dove in the pine tree--knocked up again!
Gloria spotted a dove nest one morning this spring (still trying to pin down the date -- I have a photo from April 12). We walk right under that tree, back and forth, ten times a day, so it quickly became a habit to stop and peer up through the branches. (Poor birds, we probably make them terribly nervous?) It wasn't long before we spied what we thought were 2 little tails hanging out of the nest. Then after awhile, yes, two youngsters started sitting on a branch just a few inches from the nest. It seemed like a relatively long time -- every day the two of them would inch out just a little further. Always silent, as far as we could tell, and impressively still. We never did see an adult feeding them (which was a bit of a mystery). Then came the inevitable day when one of them vanished, leaving one behind to sit silently. Alone! After another day or two, the second one also disappeared.
I laughed at myself at the time, and for several weeks after that--I missed them. I had empty nest syndrome!! lol.
Imagine how startled I was to glance up ~ 10 days ago (Saturday, May 30th), and find her back in the nest. Or him? I actually haven't seen anyone say if they trade off sitting on the eggs? [Keep reading: apparently they do.]
White-winged Doves:
Cornell says they mate 'permanently,' or at the very least, for an entire season. Apparently, if conditions are right, they tend to have 2 broods of 1-2 eggs per season. Incubation is 14-20 days (that seems like quite a range. I wonder if there are general factors that mean it is faster or slower? or if it is a genetic trait of the local dove population?) Nestling period is 13-18 days. Which squares with my sense that the teenagers were hunched on a branch watching the world go by for quite awhile.
*Note: the Audubon Society page says incubation is by both parents 13-14 days. Both parents feed the young 'pigeon milk' for 13-16 days. They say 2-3 broods per year.
*UNM Zoology https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Zenaida_asiatica/ says most of them are migratory, unless they are living in a residential setting where there is food is available. (I want to say that ours are year-round, but that's a great question?) It says -- amen! -- that it is difficult to distinguish the males from the females. It says the males tend to sit on the nest mid-morning to mid-afternoon, the females mid-afternoon overnight to the next morning.
"Incubation lasts about 14 days, and the older chick hatches about a day earlier than its sibling. For the first four days of life, White-winged Dove parents feed their chicks “crop milk”, a protein- and fat-rich secretion of the esophageal lining that is chemically similar to mammalian milk. This diet is then supplemented with regurgitated seeds, and by the second week, the chicks’ diet is mostly composed of seeds."
"By early August, nesting is over, and the adults and young doves aggregate in large feeding flocks where food is available. They move between nightly roost sites and daily foraging grounds until mid to late September, when they begin to migrate south." (Research done in TX) We will have to watch and pay attention to see if they all disappear?
As Gloria said, doves in general are distinctive because they can drink without tipping the water back into their throats the way the sparrows and chickadees do. They sip with their long, delicate beaks.
Or maybe they are Eurasian Collared Doves - Streptopelia decaocto?! (What I have been calling Ring-necked doves)
If that is the case (the parents really hunker down--I have yet to get a good look at the neck markings) actually, the same life history details apply: https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/eurasian-collared-dove
I laughed at myself at the time, and for several weeks after that--I missed them. I had empty nest syndrome!! lol.
Imagine how startled I was to glance up ~ 10 days ago (Saturday, May 30th), and find her back in the nest. Or him? I actually haven't seen anyone say if they trade off sitting on the eggs? [Keep reading: apparently they do.]
White-winged Doves:
Cornell says they mate 'permanently,' or at the very least, for an entire season. Apparently, if conditions are right, they tend to have 2 broods of 1-2 eggs per season. Incubation is 14-20 days (that seems like quite a range. I wonder if there are general factors that mean it is faster or slower? or if it is a genetic trait of the local dove population?) Nestling period is 13-18 days. Which squares with my sense that the teenagers were hunched on a branch watching the world go by for quite awhile.
*Note: the Audubon Society page says incubation is by both parents 13-14 days. Both parents feed the young 'pigeon milk' for 13-16 days. They say 2-3 broods per year.
*UNM Zoology https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Zenaida_asiatica/ says most of them are migratory, unless they are living in a residential setting where there is food is available. (I want to say that ours are year-round, but that's a great question?) It says -- amen! -- that it is difficult to distinguish the males from the females. It says the males tend to sit on the nest mid-morning to mid-afternoon, the females mid-afternoon overnight to the next morning.
"Incubation lasts about 14 days, and the older chick hatches about a day earlier than its sibling. For the first four days of life, White-winged Dove parents feed their chicks “crop milk”, a protein- and fat-rich secretion of the esophageal lining that is chemically similar to mammalian milk. This diet is then supplemented with regurgitated seeds, and by the second week, the chicks’ diet is mostly composed of seeds."
"By early August, nesting is over, and the adults and young doves aggregate in large feeding flocks where food is available. They move between nightly roost sites and daily foraging grounds until mid to late September, when they begin to migrate south." (Research done in TX) We will have to watch and pay attention to see if they all disappear?
As Gloria said, doves in general are distinctive because they can drink without tipping the water back into their throats the way the sparrows and chickadees do. They sip with their long, delicate beaks.
Or maybe they are Eurasian Collared Doves - Streptopelia decaocto?! (What I have been calling Ring-necked doves)
If that is the case (the parents really hunker down--I have yet to get a good look at the neck markings) actually, the same life history details apply: https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/eurasian-collared-dove
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