Pat Bean's blog

“Lavender clouds sail like a fleet of ships across the pale green dawn.” – Edward Abbey. The Opposite of Bird Watching

White-winged doves on the ends, mourning doves in the middle. — Photo by Pat Bean

It is a dawn like what Abbey describes that makes me often wake before the sun rises. After watching the gray turn the landscape into a fleeting moment of golden glow, I began looking around for birds, knowing that when I return to my apartment I will note in my journal the first species of the day. More often than not it will be a dove, either a white-winged or a mourning dove.

White-winged dove on top of a blooming saguaro. — Photo by Pat Bean

Both these species are as common here in the Sonoran Desert as are the saguaro, which normally can only be found in Southern Arizona or just across the border into Mexico.

You can see a mourning dove anyway in the mainland 48 states, but white-winged doves can only be found in the more southern states. Here where I live, I often see them sitting atop a saguaro, especially when it is in bloom (like the photo on the left). Mourning doves more commonly tend to flock on the ground in bunches of two to six.

If I listen, as my canine companion Pepper and I make our morning circuit, I can hear the doves murmuring to one another. It’s an interesting chatter. The mourning doves have a mellow, cooing song, which sounds like a lament, but which also is close to the sound of our resident great horned owls. White-winged doves, named for just that, also coo, but there is more variation and cheeriness to their songs. It sounds to me like they’re happy to be up and moving, while the mourning doves are bemoaning having to get up.

Recently I added a bird feeder to the nectar feeder that hangs on my third-floor apartment balcony. Both the mourning and white-winged doves have been feeding from it. They empty it way too quickly, which is why I only partially fill it each morning. There is only so much bird seed my budget can afford.

The doves, having become familiar with my custom of putting out seeds after my morning walk, often gather on the tile roof across from my apartment in anxious anticipation. I think you can call that people watching.

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Bean Pat: With Less Weight in my Back Pack http://tinyurl.com/z5kco7l Sedona area landscape — and the way I feel these days.