Not the prettiest image, but these doves didn’t seem to mind me. I didn’t think I could talk them into moving to a better background. I did not know that doves had different colors.
@lynnz@ludwigsdiana I came around a corner. If I had taken another step I probably would have spooked them, but I slowly switched my balance to my back foot and got my phone out of my pocket and just peeked around the corner. I was probably only 6 feet away. I used the iphone zoom which is only 3X. I had to crop out a bit of the corner I was peeking around.
@maggiemae According to Wikipedia the mourning dove male and females do have slightly different colors. The male has a more intense and vivid coloration than the female. The male mourning dove has a bluish-gray crown and back, light pink breast area, and bright purple-pink patches on the sides of the neck. The female has some of these colors muted as she looks tanner and with a dusty rose color around her head and neck region. So I think it helped that the male had his back to me and the female was facing me so it made the color difference more pronounced.
are they different species or interbred like our London pigeons? The pink looks a bit like the ring-collared dove and the grey is what I'd think of as a wood pigeon colours
@shannejw Our wildlife area says we only have mourning doves in our area, but since they can be pets, it’s possible someone has lost a different variety. We seem to get a lot of “invasive” species here. So I don’t know. Next time I go to the wildlife center, I’ll show them the photo.
