A White-winged Dove was reported this morning on Facebook by Richard Watts
in Mt. Juliet, Wilson County. I reached out to Richard and went to the
address with Chris Agee midday, but the bird did not appear for the 50
minutes we were there. I stayed in the general area, however, and Richard
called me about 30 minutes later to let me know it had returned. It was
gone again in the 15 minutes it took me to come back, but eventually
reappeared. It is coming to his feeder and water feature intermittently,
and flying up to any number of tall trees in the yard and along the lake
shore between trips.
While I was there, the bird did not come to the feeder, but dropped in to a
hidden position on a fence, which required me to move around the deck to
view. I got a couple of distant photos before it flew into a tall tree and
for several minutes could be heard singing. In my limited experience,
White-winged Doves have seemed less skittish than Mourning Doves, but this
one was quite nervous. All together, I saw / heard it for 5 minutes or
less.
(Among more usual feeder-bird species present, there was also a singing
male Prothonotary Warbler, a species which has nested in his nest boxes in
the past, and both male and female mature Baltimore Orioles).
Graham Gerdeman
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