How to Identify aWhite-winged Dove
Zenaida asiatica · 11 in (28 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Gray-brown with a broad white wing stripe, a black mark on the cheek, an orange eye and bare blue skin around it. Sexes look alike.
Female
Identical to the male in the field.
Male photo: Alan Vernon / Wikimedia, CC BY 2.0 · Second photo: Greg Schechter from San Francisco, USA / Wikimedia, CC BY 2.0
Field marks
- Bold white stripe along the folded wing edge
- Bare blue skin around an orange eye
- Square-tipped tail with white corners
- Small black crescent below the cheek
Similar species
What it sounds like
A hooting "who cooks for you", lower and more rhythmic than a Mourning Dove’s lament.
Behaviour that gives it away
Pollinates and feeds on saguaro cactus, timing its northward arrival to when the flowers and fruit appear.
Habitat & range
Desert, thorn scrub, citrus groves, towns and suburbs across the Southwest and Gulf coast.
When you'll see it
Depending on where in southwestern and southeastern North America you are, it is present all year and a summer visitor that arrives to breed.
What it eats
Seeds, grain, cactus fruit and nectar.
Did you know?
It times its arrival in the Sonoran Desert to the saguaro bloom, feeding on the nectar and fruit and pollinating the cactus in return.
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