I didn't realize that doves would nest in the middle of winter until you shared this story with us. And then coincidentally, just this morning, as I was researching the subject of photoperiodism for a journal submission, I came across this passage in the Journal of Biological Rhythms (Aug. 2001): "Most species of birds feed their young on
be more restricted and more asymmetrical with
respect to the annual cycle in photoperiod than it is in
mammals. Most species of birds feed their young on
specific food resources, rather than milk, and so breed-
ing is restricted to the time when the required food
resource is sufficiently available. Only rarely will this
be symmetrical with photoperiodic changes. It may be
significant that in the group of birds that do feed their
young on milk, the Columbiformes (doves and
pigeons, which feed their young on a milk-like secre-
tion derived from the crop-sac), breeding seasons are
longer and symmetrical. In other species, the food
resource required for the young may be seasonal but
predictable, seasonal but unpredictable, or relatively
constant, and reproductive strategies adopted by di
specific food resources, rather than milk, and so breeding is restricted to the time when the required food resource is sufficiently available. Only rarely will this be symmetrical with photoperiodic changes. It may be significant that in the group of birds that do feed their young on milk, the Columbiformes (doves and pigeons, which feed their young on a milk-like secretion derived from the crop-sac), breeding seasons are longer and symmetrical." tends
I had no idea that doves fed their young this way!
Kirstin Chapman, Arvada, CO
be more restricted and more asymmetrical with
respect to the annual cycle in photoperiod than it is in
mammals. Most species of birds feed their young on
specific food resources, rather than milk, and so breed-
ing is restricted to the time when the required food
resource is sufficiently available. Only rarely will this
be symmetrical with photoperiodic changes. It may be
significant that in the group of birds that do feed their
young on milk, the Columbiformes (doves and
pigeons, which feed their young on a milk-like secre-
tion derived from the crop-sac), breeding seasons are
longer and symmetrical. In other species, the food
resource required for the young may be seasonal but
predictable, seasonal but unpredictable, or relatively
constant, and reproductive strategies adopted by di
Sent from my iPad
On Jan 31, 2025, at 9:33 AM, Scott Somershoe <ssomershoe@gmail.com> wrote:
--For those of you keeping score at home, the pair of Eurasian Collared-doves in my yard (Littleton, JeffCo) have been keeping busy.On Jan 20th, the pair flew into my backyard and there was extended courtship and then copulation. It was 9 degrees F. This was at the end of the prolonged cold spell where it got to about -7F here on a couple of previous nights. Details on the interesting behavior here:https://ebird.org/checklist/S210105706A bird has been on and off the nest in the last week, more often off the nest for extended periods, and I wasn't sure what was going on. However, there's been a bird on the nest every time I checked over the last couple days. This morning I finally got around to attaching a small mirror to an extending pole (don't tell my daughter I took her favorite mirror and used duct tape on it) and confirmed there are 2 eggs in the nest. This is the same nest they've used at least twice previously. I do not know if they are sprucing up the nest with new sticks or material for each of these nesting attempts or cleaning it out at all. It brought me back to field work days checking bird nests in flooded bottomland hardwood swamps with a long extending pole and mirror. :)Side notes: I occasionally see a 3rd or 4th bird, presumably the recent fledglings, but I usually do not see any other collared doves around. A few days ago when it was snowing hard, the pair sat very close together in the backyard for over an hour, so I was pretty sure they didn't have eggs. Last week, two adults were sitting on the nest in the morning (next to one another on the nest) with a fledgling (based on the plumage and bill) sitting about a foot away. There are other singing males in the neighborhood and it makes me wonder if a lot of them are also nesting now. Interesting observations during an otherwise hohum winter for birds around here.Scott SomershoeLittleton CO
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