Every morning I put out bird seed for my “wild things”. A fair amount of that seed goes to the squirrels. I know a lot of folks don’t like squirrels at their feeders, but I really don’t mind them. Some of the more cheeky birds don’t mind eating with the squirrels, and for the more timid ones, there is always plenty left. I’ve always enjoyed bird watching and have a decent species list, but since I started getting into photography, I have enjoyed having the birds around even more. One of the birds that I think the squirrels may even inadvertently attract are the ground doves. Squirrels are basically slobs. When they are around, seed goes flying, and some of the birds really don’t like feeding on the ground, but the ground doves don’t mind at all.

The common ground dove is the smallest dove in the United States and in fact in all of North America. It’s size is about halfway between a sparrow and a robin. As the name suggests, it likes to forage on the ground and eats mostly seeds from grasses and other, low lying plants. They supplement the seeds with occasional berries and fallen fruit as well as small insects; especially ones that are found on the plants that they forage from. They are also frequently seen at feeders where they usually stay on the ground and pick up spilled seeds. They are usually found in open areas with low brush, forest edges, pine woods, and farms. Common ground doves are only found in the southern most areas of the United States, but range down into Mexico, Central America, and northern South America.

Ground doves look very similar to several other types of doves in the United States. Those include mourning doves and Inca doves, and in fact in areas where both species live (mainly southern Texas), ground doves and Inca doves are frequently seen together in mixed flocks. Here in Florida, we don’t have Inca doves, but we do have mourning doves. Mourning doves are larger than common ground doves, have longer tails, and behave quite differently. To me, though, the easiest way to tell the two apart (at least if you’re fairly close to them) is that ground doves have a pinkish orange beak that may or may not have a black tip, while mourning doves have a black beak.

Even though they are called the common ground dove, in the United States they are only common in a few areas. We are fortunate here in central Florida to be one of those places. Unless it rains pretty heavily, I have several ground doves that feed here daily. At least two of them I suspect are a bonded pair since they always seem to be together. I don’t know if the others are just unattached birds that happen to live here since food is readily available, or perhaps they are offspring of the pair. All I know is that I find them adorable as they walk around with their pigeon toed shuffle and their soft cooing calls.