Lifestyles

Of a Feather: Mourning the passenger

By BILL CHAISSON
By Bill Chaisson

During our recent warm spell last week, I was surprised to flush six mourning doves that were foraging under a spruce tree in our yard. Since moving here in December they were first I’d seen. This morning there were two beneath my feeder.

Seeds blown from the trees and forbs were being uncovered by the melting of the snow and the doves had found them. I was surprised it took them this long to find my feeders; I had scattered plenty of millet and nyjer on the ground for them.

Mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) are now our only native columbiform in the Northeast. Once, of course, the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was present in great foraging flocks. In New Hampshire they both bred and wandered widely in search of food.

In “1491,” his survey of pre-Columbian North American history, Charles C. Mann presented evidence for the hypothesis that passenger pigeon numbers were elevated by widespread North American silvicultural practices. For centuries the tribal people selectively removed non-nut bearing trees in favor of nut-bearing species because they used the mast (fruit) as a winter food supply.

Researchers note that while the passenger pigeon was extant, there were more white oaks than red oaks. Some believe this was because white oak acorns ripen in the fall and are therefore not as useful to breeding pigeons. Red oak acorns ripen in the spring. Since the demise of the passenger pigeon, red oaks have assumed dominance.

This hypothesis leaves out that white oak acorns are palatable to humans, while red oak acorns are not. That is, per Charles Mann, white oaks may have been more common due to tribal silvicultural practices rather than preferential consumption of red-oak acorns by pigeons.

Unlike the mourning dove, the passenger pigeon did not restrict itself to feeding on the ground. Flocks were recorded as stripping trees of all their fruit. Passenger pigeons had very elastic bills and throats and large crops, which allowed them to swallow whole 100 grams of acorns. They digested them as they slept.

Mourning doves resemble the extinct E. migratorius, but they are not closely related. Studies of the DNA of the Columbidae place them in different subfamilies. Male passenger pigeons were 15-16 inches long; the females were only slightly smaller. They had an iridescent patch on the back of their necks (nape) and shoulders (mantle) that flashed bronze, green, and violet in the light. Their bodies were varying shades of gray with black primary and secondary feathers. The two central tail feathers were gray-brown, and the rest were white.

Mourning doves are smaller, generally a foot long. They are feathered in shades of gray and brown, but their iridescence is confined to their nape and is less showy. While they have the same long, wedge-shaped tail, theirs is mostly gray with the feathers edged in black and white bands. Their wings too are a uniform brownish gray and whistle as they take off.

Z. macroura is a seed eater but consumes much smaller fruit than the pigeon. Doves are able to eat nothing larger than a peanut and largely focus on cultivated grains, as well as wild grasses, weeds, herbs, and occasionally berries. Unlike the pigeons, these doves feed almost entirely on the ground. If they come to your feeding station, they will eat spilled millet unless you have a platform feeder for them to stand on.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the mourning dove was rare in New Hampshire and entirely absent in the winter. It was first observed along the seacoast and along the river valleys. According to “Birds of New Hampshire,” after the 1940s it began to appear more regularly, and it began to remain present throughout the year. It is now found throughout the state during the summer, breeding from March to as late as December. Its numbers thin in the winter, but it is still widespread. Birds that do migrate return early in the spring, likely in early March.

In 1912, Edward Forbush, the state ornithologist of Massachusetts, wrote that the passenger pigeon was the most common bird — perhaps on Earth — in 1650. By 1850 its numbers were greatly reduced in New England. The last large flocks in New Hampshire were recorded in 1870. None were seen in the state after 1888.

Writing in “Birds of America” in 1917, George Gladden remarked, “. . . Probably all of the ‘Passenger Pigeons’ reported during the last twenty years have been Mourning Doves; this, at least, has so often proved to be the case that ornithologists take little interest nowadays in announcements that a flock of the Pigeons has been seen.”

While the pigeons were forest birds, mourning doves are birds of open country and the edges of woodlands. Historically, they would have fed in natural grasslands and clearings, but the spread of agriculture opened up great swathes of new territory for them. When agriculture was replaced by suburban sprawl, mourning doves hardly missed a beat.

Their numbers did, however, decline by 15% between 1966 and 2015, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Like the passenger pigeon before them, mourning doves are shot as game birds. According to allaboutbirds.org, they are the most popular game bird in North America; hunters shoot 20 million each year.

As game birds they share the same health hazards as ducks, being shot, of course, but also a slower death by lead poisoning. Because they feed on the ground and are seed eaters, mourning doves routinely ingest lead shot in areas where they are heavily hunted. According to allaboutbirds.org, “studies have found this problem is worst around fields specifically planted to attract the doves, and that about one in 20 doves wind up eating lead.” There is, however, no concern about their future. Since 1917 hunting has been subject to conservation laws, and the population is estimated to be 120 million birds.

Bill Chaisson has been a birdwatcher from the age of 10. He is a former managing editor of the Eagle Times and now works and lives in the town of Wilmot. Contact him at [email protected].

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