common_nature | Mating Mourning Doves

Ever since we put the plants out and removed the food plate, we've occasionally had birds investigating the balcony. In the case of the mourning doves this usually means one wandering about pecking the floor at random.

One day we saw that it was not one but two so we thought we'd try to take some photos. To our surprise we caught a mating act. We've tried doing this multiple times when we've seen them mating on the railing but it was always tough to time it. So this time was just luck as we were already taking pics.

We've noticed that the act tends to have three parts. The first is some vigorous self-grooming. You can see that the male is still very puffed up here. The female then hunches down.

The mourning doves will generally start locking beaks together. The actual mounting happens pretty quickly, just a few seconds. I'm surprised we even got two separate shots of it.

Afterward they both tend to start preening themselves. Sometimes a second round will happen after 5 minutes or so, though in this case they left our balcony.