On 2013-06-01 22:14:43 +0100, David Hill said:


They're not dust-bathing or spreading their wings. They're just lying
there, neatly tucked in, as if simply having a nice quiet rest on the
lawn. They make no movement whatsoever, to the point where Ray wasn't
certain about what creature he was seeing this morning. He even
considered some frightened rabbit or hare because unlike me, he hasn't
seen them do this before. There is no ants' nest, no nothing to be seen
other than dozy pigeons. Occasionally, they get up, move about a bit
and lie down again. I've now seen this about half a dozen times and
then the bird gets up and flies off.

I've looked around a bit and found these replies on "birdforum" which
is world wide bird site.

"mourning doves sitting on ground..

I have a male/female couple who've decided to plunk down as if they had
a nest ..problem is they don't have a nest in my backyard on the ground
6 ft. from my back door. Question is do Doves or for that matter any
birds in general like to "take a break" from standing/perching and give
their legs a rest?? "

"I think Mourning Doves are quite similar to the Collared Doves here in
Europe and the ones in my garden do seem to like to take a little sit
on the ground occasionally - I was concerned when I first saw it too as
I'd previously seen one sitting like that after a window strike but
although I don't see them sitting often they do occasionally plonk
themselves down in the grass for a bit, especially in the summer they
like to find a sunny patch of grass and bask there."

"Probably just sunbathing. I see Mourning Doves on the ground with
out-stretched wings regularly in my backyard in Reno. Sometimes they
hold position for 10 or 15 minutes & seem to be almost comatose. The
point of the exercise is apparently parasite control, flushing out
feather mites and other vermin by over-heating".

Thanks for looking that up, David. The 'problem' - it's not a problem
at all! - is that these are wood pigeons, not our collared doves, which
are not doing this. None has hit a window here and while it has warmed
up a lot, it isn't exactly scorching hot and certainly wasn't at 8 this
morning. They're not stretching out their wings but otherwise, the
last para makes sense because the holding position for 10 to 15 minutes
(probably not so long here) and the appearing comatose, rings bells.
We're simply fascinated by it because we've never seen it before. Is
this a result of mites/vermin on pigeons because of the very wet
winter, I wonder? The first time I saw a pigeon do this, I thought it
had been wounded by another, or by one of the rooks but that wasn't the
case at all. I've seen several do this since then and Ray saw his first
example this morning.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk