# Mourning Doves in December?



## NHS (Sep 7, 2007)

Have any of you ever seen a mourning dove? In the snow? In late December? In Utah County? I saw a couple of them on my feeder yesterday morning. They looked pretty rough, but for some reason it looks like they decided not to head south. Is there a resident population that rides the winter out? Oh yeah, these were not ECDs, definately mourning doves. I snapped a picture of them.


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## Rusty Shacklford (Oct 24, 2008)

I'm a little further north up in Weber County and I had about 20 of them hanging around my feeders yesterday. I've had them hang out all winter long around my place, they like to keep seperated from the larger Eurasian doves. The will sit bunched up together on the fence in the backyard.


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## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

Next door to me is a little ranchette (you know, not quite a ranch but a few animals and a barn, etc.) The guy has some huge trees around his place and the doves use those trees all year long.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Yes, not uncommon at all.

The Utah birdwatchers turn in a good numbers of Mourning Doves on the annual Christmas Bird Counts (CBC). There are about 25 count circles, 15-miles in diameter, in Utah and mourning doves are usually counted on more than half the circles each year. There's not a count in Lehi, but Payson has one. The Salt Lake City and Provo counts usually get 100s of mourning doves on their CBCs. Heber City even has them on the Christmas Count. Looking at the records it seems mourning dove tallies are increasing on the CBCs, maybe due to warmer winters. Morgan has had them 7 of the last 10 years.

You can view all the historical Christmas Bird Count data, back to 1900 on this site. It's really cool. Look up California Quail for Burns OR; holy cow!!:
http://birds.audubon.org/data-research

Here's some interesting Utah CBC data for Mourning Dove:
http://netapp.audubon.org/cbcobservatio ... sData.aspx

One-half of the Evanston CBC is in Utah, much of it on the DLL Ranch. We've never had Mourning Doves in the 32 years we've had the count. I am the count coordinator.


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## Briar Patch (Feb 1, 2010)

I live near a dairy in the Payson area. I see some pretty regularly.

Thanks for the links Goob - pretty cool information source!


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## Sprig Kennels (Jan 13, 2009)

i have been noticing some mourning doves around the past few days now that you mention it. a few have been picking grit off the road in front of the house each afternoon. It's pretty rare to see those around here this late in the year with how cold it has been. we have tons ECD but a very uncommon sight to see the mourning dove this late in the year in box elder county.


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## Chaser (Sep 28, 2007)

At any given time, you could look out my kitchen window here in Taylorsville, and likely see as many as ten. I see them in much bigger groups once the snow flies. Sure wish I could still hunt them.


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## blackbear (Oct 18, 2007)

We had until Dec. 16th to kill one. And we saw them almost every day there wasn't snow on the ground. But this is the closest we got ever got all season, so bummed I couldn't even smile...


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Cool pic blackbear

Yesterday mourning doves were reported on a feeder in Green River WY. Very odd for southwest Wyoming for this time of year.


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## Hunter_17 (Mar 15, 2008)

I saw a few yesterday while out shooting ECD doves. Had to start picking out the ECD from the morning doves.

I did however shoot this cream colored ECD. [attachment=0:2likjr6t]ImageUploadedByTapatalk1357060135.079220.jpg[/attachment:2likjr6t]


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