Band-tailed Doves (or pidgeons)

Band-tailed Doves (or pidgeons)

One of our interesting birds that we share this habitat with is the Band-tailed Dove, or more accurate a brood of Band-tailed Doves.  These hungry birds arrive in spring, disappear in the heat of the summer, come back in the fall, and disappear in the winter.  According to a local bird expert, the Band-tailed lives all year in the tree canopy of this area. 

The picture above is from Google images.  They love the black sunflower seeds.  They can devour the amount of seeds in our large birdfeeder in one day.   Periodically so many of these birds feed at one time that the plastic circle base of our feeder falls down.  Then the Band-tailed has no base on which to stand and feed - until I get out and fix the feeder.

They are also very skittish.  Just a reflection of one of us looking at the birds through a window will scare them away.  One time I refilled the bird feeders at 4pm and sat on the deck reading a book.  After a few minutes I heard these birds in the tree tops flapping their wings and telling me to go inside so they can come and eat.  Flap, Flap, Flap.  So I soon went inside.

The following web-site has more information on this species http://birds242.blogspot.com/2011/01/band-tailed-pigeon.html