Sunning Doves
Sunning is when birds lie on a fence or the ground and spread one (or both) of their wings and their tail out. Birds often do this on sunny days. A bird that is sunning may look injured or even dead, but this is normal bird behavior and helps rid the bird of parasites like mites and lice.
Mother and baby dove eating suet and need feather ID
Mother and baby dove eating suet. The baby clung to the suet cage and was swinging around. What a silly baby dove.
The feather was found at Paul D Rushing’s Chain of Lakes when we were going to visit the (empty) mockingbird nest. It is a blackish brownish white feather. It was about 5” long and pointy.
White-winged Dove eating suet
I didn’t know that doves ate suet. Google says that they don’t. We got some new birdseed with milo, millet, and basically no sunflower seeds. (the birds don’t like it) We normally buy Economy Mix Wild Bird Feed Bird Seed Blend. It has black oil sunflower seeds, striped sunflower seeds, milo, millet, wheat, and corn. The birds love it. We get white-winged doves, mourning doves, Eurasian collared doves, house sparrows, European starlings, cardinals, house finches, and blue jays. Most of the birds are eating suet now. We are getting the good birdseed today so the birds will come back.