Common Ground Dove

The Common Ground Dove is one of many species I first learned about as a kid through reading Lowery's Louisiana Birds book.  I was plenty familiar with pigeons and I was an avid hunter of Mourning Doves, but I wondered if I had somehow overlooked Common Ground Doves.  I wondered if maybe they were so similar to Mourning Doves that I'd seen them and passed them off as the wrong species. 

I shouldn't have worried. One fine fall day, as I was riding in a car west of Kaplan down what's now called Rosewood Road, a chunky bird a little bigger than a House Sparrow flushed off the shell and gravel roadside right next to the car.  I could tell it was a dove by its flight pattern, and the small size, short tail, and the rufous flashes in its wings were enough to convince me it was a Common Ground Dove.  

A few years later I got a better look at one in the Enchanted Forest on the LSU campus, and over the years I've seen them in scattered locations throughout the state. You can't expect them anywhere, but you can expect them anywhere--if that makes any sense.  They're not common, but I see a few every year.  I usually see them as singles, but I have seen small groups of them at times, including one relatively huge group of 20-something years ago on the Lafayette Christmas Bird Count.

Identifying Common Ground Doves is fairly easy, but there is one recent invader that's made the job a little harder.  Over the past few decades the similar and formerly rare in the state Inca Dove has moved into Louisiana, and has become way more common than the Common Ground Dove.  The Inca differs in a few ways, most noticeably in having a longer tail.    

The Common Ground Dove in this video was in the Duson area this morning.  It was unusually cooperative, and during the course of preening showed off all of its important field marks.  Look for the red flash in its wings, and see if you can see the small white marks on the corners of its tail.  Awesome little bird.