The dove has secrets

As a newbie to bird feeding and birdfeeders, I have gotten a lot of advice. For example, I have heard that it is the blue jays that are the bullies of the backyard. They squawk loudly and push their weight around. I have always thought that they are particularly beautiful birds with gorgeous plumage, so I was wondering how I would feel about them as time went on.

When you start putting out seed in the feeder, you wait for days for anything to show up. When they do, your first question is, “How do they know that food is available right here?” which I still cannot answer. As time goes on, birds of different species continue to arrive. After about five months of this, I can honestly say that I regularly have representatives of 10 genera — with a total of 14 different species — showing up. And these are just from those birds that do not migrate with the coming of the cold weather. I can’t wait to see how many more will show up once the weather warms up.

However, the issue before us is literally the “pecking order.” I must say that blue jays get a bad rep. Yes, they are large and yes, they are noisy, but I do not find them particularly belligerent. The prize for belligerency actually goes to the mourning dove.

When my first dove showed up at the feeder, I was very pleasantly surprised. I had seen them occasionally; we have these rosy expectations of doves. The symbol we are all aware of is the “Dove of Peace.” The first thing to know is that the dove is a large bird and size is always part of the equation. The general feeding pattern is for birds of all sizes to show up, grab a few seeds, fly away and return. But the dove is not in a hurry. It lands by the food bowl and eyes it. If another bird shows up, it carefully shoos it away and pecks seed leisurely over the rim. But after a few minutes, it still does not leave. It clambers over the edge of the bowl and settles into it as if it were nesting there so that no other bird can get near the seed.