Common Ground-Dove
The stocky but diminutive Common Ground-Dove, 6 1/2 inches long, is only a little larger than a Song Sparrow. It is North America's smallest dove. The aptly named Ground-Dove is often encountered foraging on the ground for seeds, small berries, and occasional insects. Common Ground-Doves are most common in semi-open habitats such as brushy woodland edges, sandy agricultural lands, old weedy fields and orange groves. In the desert they are typically found near watercourses.

Ground-Doves are fairly tame birds, allowing close approach until they flush with a slight rattling sound and a bright rufous flash of rounded wings. Usually they fly a short distance to the nearest cover. When courting, males strut before prospective mates with flicking wings and bobbing heads in the manner of domestic pigeons, cooing while puffing out their feathers. Males sometimes call for hours at a time from low perches in trees or on the ground. The call is a long series of notes rising in inflection and repeated about once a second, as "whoooip, whoooip, whoooip, whoooip....".

The nest is fragile and thin, a shallow platform of stems and grasses placed in a low shrub, cactus, or palm, or occasionally on the ground. Ground-Doves are not averse to reusing their own nest, or that of a cardinal or thrasher. The female lays only two eggs at a time. However, she may produce several clutches over an extended breeding season, which can last from February to November, depending on food availability. As in other dove species, the parents feed their nestlings regurgitated food, or "pigeon milk." The young develop rapidly. They are capable of flying when they are 11 days old and are capable of breeding at three months of age.

Common Ground-Doves range from South Carolina south along the Gulf Coast through Texas and southern Arizona to southern California, and along both coasts of Mexico through Central America to Brazil. Most populations are sedentary, although those at the northern part of the range may move south in winter, or may rarely wander as far north as Oregon or New York. In winter, Ground-Doves tend to occur in flocks. The highest population densities in the United States are found near the Salton Sea in pinyon-juniper woodlands and in the mesquite savannas of southern Texas. Ground-Doves are also quite common in the Florida peninsula.
Common Ground-Dove Range Map

Description: These tiny doves are generally brownish gray above and somewhat paler below with scaled breast and nape. The forehead and cheeks are pale pinkish, and the crown and hindneck are scaled bluish-gray. The black tipped bill is red at the base. Legs and feet are red. The short rounded tail has a black terminal bar thinning toward the center of the tail, and the outer tail feathers are tipped with white. At rest the wings show dark brownish bars and spots. In flight the bright rufous underwings and black-tipped rufous primaries of the upper wings are distinctive and conspicuous.

Eastern birds tend to be more strongly rufous colored than western birds, which tend toward pale and gray. Females in both regions are paler than males, so that eastern females resemble western males. The very pale western females have pinkish-based bills and may have very faint scaling on the head, breast and nape.

Two other small doves show bright rufous wings in flight. The Ruddy Ground-Dove (C. talpacoti) is only slightly larger than the Common Ground-Dove, but may be distinguished by the lack of scaling and by the presence of spotting on the scapular feathers above the wing. Males, especially in the eastern parts of the range, are rufous- bodied with light blue-gray heads; western birds are paler. The bill lacks the red base of the Common Ground-Dove. Ruddy Ground-Doves are rare visitors to the Southwest. The Inca Dove (C. inca) is another small southwestern dove. It is scaly all over with a much longer tail and white outer tail feathers.

Visit Shaw Creek Bird Supply to see our selection of Dove Feeders.

Copyright © 2003 Shaw Creek Bird Supply