The view from my
office window includes a bird feeder my husband built for me. I have seen Brown-headed Cowbirds, Sage
Thrushers, White-crowned Sparrows, Quail, Pinion Jays and Eurasian
Collared-Doves. The latter being one of my favorite as shown above. I took this picture of him sitting on a block
of bird seed we've set on the feeder.
At first I thought they
were Mourning Doves because they sound just like them. Their soulful Koo-KOO-kook echoing from their
perch at the top of our house to the fence across the street where the male
struts his romantic dance for the female all while repeating his touching song.
Actually, the Eurasian
Collared-Dove is the chunky relative of the Mourning Dove and gets its name
from the blank half-collar at the name of its neck. These doves made their way to North America
via the Bahamas where, amazingly, several birds escaped from a pet shop during
a mid-1970 burglary. The birds spread to
Florida and now live over almost all of North America where they seek open
sites in agricultural areas where grain is available, including farmyards,
fields, and silos. They avoid areas with heavy forest cover or extremely cold
temperatures, which explains why they live . . . in the view from my office
window.
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