One of the biggest flocks is the white winged doves. I might as well have homing pigeons for like clockwork, they show up every morning in droves waiting for the food line to open. If you walk down the side street and look down our alley, you will know our house by the rows of birds on the telephone and cable lines. We live in an old neighborhood and still have the lines that run down the alleys that separate the backs of the yards of the houses.
The Audubon Society's Field Guide to Western Birds describes them in drab detail, in fact that is exactly the word they use, "Drab brown body with a purplish sheen on crown, neck, and shoulder. Primaries charcoal gray; white upper wing converts." Oh yeah? Well, I guess ordinarily but like any creature, there are variances and I notice them all the time.
The common pigeon or rock dove as one may note has many color types but those flying pigs are not welcome in my yard and they know it. Let them find their own food kitchen for we humans have tons of waste and they are very resourceful.
But I digress...the white winged doves in my yard are quite individual as to their markings. Now I'll admit, I cannot tell male from female (unlike the rock doves) unless they are courting and then it is easy to tell. But I have gotten to know many of the individuals that show up in my yard. One is obvious, it has but one leg but manages well and the others don't seem to give it a hard time as birds are wont to do. She shows up every day for the handout. Then there is one that has an almost completely white tail, not just bars...it looks as if someone dipped him in paint. Some are drab grayish brown with no tail bars in white, some are almost cinnamon brown with white patches and one is almost surely albino, his color is so light. There are various degrees of browns, greys, and almost whites.
Although forwarned about their aggressive nature, I haven't found this to be true other than with their own species. The smaller Inca doves, the shy mourning and ringneck doves, the finches and sparrows and the thrashers are not a bit bothered by them and they all eat together in relative harmony. Since I only feed them in the morning and then only a set amount, I don't worry about them eating all the seed up at once. When the seed is gone, it's gone but they still hang around. Walking about in the garden, lying in the warm earth in the sun, playing in the hose and many nesting close by.
Now, those mamas and papas are bringing the babies in to show them where breakfast is, reliably and mostly timely. If I miss the time or try and laze about in the morning, they have this scout type dove that flies up to the deck, looks in the window as if to say..."hey! Aren't you forgetting something?"
Watching their antics, their loves and squabbles, their going about business amuses me endlessly. (Just goes to show how easily it is to amuse me!
) My trouble is getting anything done with all this comedy and drama right in my back yard.http://fireflyforest.net/firefly/2007/0 ... ged-doves/
it's not just the four leggeds who make a fuss when the tummy growls....lol
! Thanks again for tuning in, I so appreciate it.