Spot Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)

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Plump-bodied and long-tailed, with short legs, small bill, and a head that looks small in comparison to the body. Mourning Doves often match their open-country surroundings, ranging from delicate brown to buffy-tan overall, with black spots on the wings and black-bordered white tips to the tail feathers. Diet and behavioral habits: A graceful, slender-tailed, small-headed dove that’s common year-round resident to Balboa Park, but was seen in greater numbers in the late 1990’s. Mourning Doves perch on telephone wires and forage for seeds on the ground; their flight is fast and bullet straight. Their soft, drawn-out calls sound like laments. The Mourning Dove’s diets consists almost entirely on seeds of grasses, ragweeds, many other plants and will occasionally eats snails, but very rarely any insects. Mourning Doves eat roughly 12 to 20 percent of their body weight per day. Nesting habits: Nests are built by the female, with sticks and twigs brought by the male, after the female selects a nesting site from a selection picked by the male. Nesting sites for the Mourning Dove are typically in a tree or shrub, on the ground, or on a building ledge or other structure.

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