Mourning Dove

Field Notes

These common neighborhood birds have a distinctive cooing call which non-birders tend to mistake for Owls when they hear it in the early morning. I have personally had 3 different people tell me they have an Owl outside their window when it was actually just one of these Doves. I can't judge them however, as I constantly mistake their form in flight as a Falcon and get dissapointed literally every single time I realize it's just a Dove.