The fact that the birds nested in a pot on a balcony on a busy street seemed uncommon last year, but apparently it worked well enough that the doves came back.

By Jim Williams

For the Minnesota Star Tribune

June 6, 2024 at 12:30PM

A mourning dove at its St. Louis Park nesting site. The bird is blocking view of the nest. (Marilyn McGonagle)

Last spring Marilyn McConagle wrote to me about mourning doves landing on the deck of her St. Louis Park apartment. She thought perhaps they were honoring the recent passing of a friend of hers.

Several internet sites suggest the appearance of a dove is a visit from the spirit of a deceased friend or loved one.

Whatever brought those doves, they eventually nested in a planter on the deck, not once but twice, raising two babies each time. And this spring the doves returned during the anniversary week of the friend’s death. They nested again, raising another pair of young.

Marilyn, a lifelong non-birder, now has a serious interest in birds, at least in mourning doves.

In her first email message to me Marilyn asked what I thought of birds nesting on the second-floor deck of an apartment facing a busy street.

Spiritual associations aside, I told her it sounded unusual, even for birds known to sometimes choose close association with people. (The Cornell of Ornithology says mourning doves are “unbothered by nesting around humans.”)

The eggs in the nest. Unlike most eggs laid in open nests, mourning dove eggs are bright white. (Marilyn McGonagle)

The doves returned this year to the same nesting location — a pot for large plants — even though that species is more likely to build flimsy grass and twig nests on the branch of an evergreen or other tree, according to Cornell.

For two nesting seasons she has been sending me photos taken with her cellphone through the deck’s glass door or from the deck itself. The birds quickly accepted her presence, she said.

The doves raised and fledged a pair of youngsters last spring. They immediately raised another pair in a slightly repaired nest. Cornell points out that “mourning doves sometimes reuse their own or other species’ nests,” behavior not common among songbirds.

That was last year. This year, a third pair of doves produced two eggs and began incubation in a nest in the same pot. Marilyn believes the parents are the birds she watched in 2023, likely given the choice of nest site.

Then, a mishap: The chosen planter was tipped by the wind. The eggs broke. The birds promptly began again, producing eggs three and four for this year. The eggs hatched. Those chicks, near fledging size, disappeared the night of a heavy rain.

So, the doves began yet again, two new eggs soon appearing. Deadlines prevent reporting any conclusion.

A pair of mourning doves at their balcony nest. Both parents will incubate the eggs for about 14 days. (Marilyn McGonagle)

Mourning doves are common across the continent. Their population is considered of low conservation concern according to the organization Partners in Flight, with global population estimated at 150 million.

Mourning doves are game birds, said by Cornell to be the nation’s most popular such species, with more than 20 million shot each year. There is a season in Minnesota.

Mourning doves are also prolific. In the appropriate climate a pair of doves might nest six times during an extended breeding season.

The doves are granivorous. That describes a diet that consists primarily of seeds and grain. They feed their young “crop milk,” an antioxidant-rich liquid secreted in their throats, says Cornell.

Marilyn has been in her apartment for eight years, basically ignoring birds until her doves came along. She neither fed birds nor offered water.

The doves doubled her bird identification skills, she told me. It previously was limited to robins.

Lifelong birder Jim Williams can be reached at woodduck38@gmail.com.

Mourning dove on the balcony railing. Mourning doves are migratory, although a few birds will stay in Minnesota year-round, able to find enough food in mild winters. (Marilyn McGonagle)