We have white-winged doves on our place…with the change in climate over the past 20 years, they’ve started wintering here as well (they used to migrate south in winter.)\u00a0\u00a0 White-wings are large “dove-colored” doves–the largest native dove in the area–and except for the white flash in the wing (showing as a white stripe even on the folded wing) they’ve always struck me as being rather plain, dull birds.\u00a0 They come in flocks; they’re bullies at a feeding station; they all look alike (no gender difference) and they don’t have particularly interesting songs or anything.<\/p>\n
Silly me.\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing in nature is really dull and plain, once we really look at it.\u00a0\u00a0 This year the observation of white-wings has shown me something both new and colorful.<\/p>\n
So far, I don’t have any photographs of it.\u00a0 That’s because the birds, the weather, the\u00a0 light, and my schedule haven’t cooperated, but I hope to get some pictures eventually.<\/p>\n
White-wings had a black mark on the side of the neck or lower cheek–a sort of dash.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was looking at white-wings outside the window the other day with binoculars–they were just far enough from the window for the binoculars to focus, which meant I had a very close-up view.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the birds moved just enough–and I saw a flash of color.<\/p>\n
Below and behind the black mark, there’s a patch of feathers whose iridescence can look sulfur yellow, yellow-green, or turquoise for an instant.\u00a0 The yellow color showed most often; the green and turquoise were seen while the bird turned its neck.<\/p>\n
I looked at the other doves in that group (five or six of them were clustered together.\u00a0\u00a0 All showed a little yellow color in that area when examined with binoculars, but only the one had strong color showing.<\/p>\n
Like most birds, white-wings aren’t exactly the same color everywhere–they’re a bluer gray-taupe on top than the bottom, a “warmer” taupe below.\u00a0 The dove with the most color in its “patch” had a more definite purplish case to the top of the head and back of the neck.<\/p>\n
I have no idea what that patch of iridescence is “for”, or what the difference in intensity “means”…but it’s an interesting observation and has given me renewed interest in white-wings.\u00a0 I was beginning to think of them primarily as a nuisance, for their bullying of the smaller migratory birds I wanted to support with supplemental feeding.\u00a0 Now…I hope they stay in the yard long enough to habituate to me and my camera, so I can get pictures.\u00a0 (Though pictures of such moderate iridescence aren’t easy to get.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have white-winged doves on our place…with the change in climate over the past 20 years, they’ve started wintering here as well (they used to migrate south in winter.)\u00a0\u00a0 White-wings are large “dove-colored” doves–the largest native dove in the area–and except for the white flash in the wing (showing as a white stripe even on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13,8,23],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wildlife","tag-beauty","tag-bird-behavior","tag-observation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}