Mourning Doves:
- Their brains register the task of parenting
- Together they build a sloppy nest
- The eggs are laid — typically two
- After the eggs hatch, the father and mother alike feed their nestlings with milk
- They eventually offer plant seeds from their beaks (mourning doves eat mostly seeds)
- The hatchlings grow strong and go on to sing more distinctively than most other birds
- Their calls evoke a few simple woodwind notes
- Ancient woodwinds were used to mimic animal calls
- The Northern Paiute word for wind instrument is te-mo’-yaga-ke-no
Misc:
- Rock doves, like drunks, walk precariously close to moving car tires
- Great-tailed grackles — house guests behaving badly
- A Northern mockingbird — inexhaustible in his spry April song
- Darwin acquired various types of pigeons, breeding them to help him build evidence for his theory of natural selection, which he would present in On the Origin of Species
- He became uncharacteristically smitten with his pigeons, science writer Courtney Humphries stated in her book Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan … and the World
