Mourning Doves and Canada Geese

     Mourning doves and Canada geese are legal game birds at the start of September each year in Pennsylvania farmland.  And although they are members of different families, these handsome, permanent resident birds have much in common because they share human-made habitats- the innumerable lawns and fields they have adapted to.  They demonstrate convergent evolution. 
     Both these adaptable species feed on vegetation, the abundant doves on seeds and grain in fields, and the numerous geese on short grass on lawns and fields and on grain in fields.  Both raise young on suburban lawns, the doves in flimsy twig and grass platforms in trees and the geese in grassy nurseries on the ground near built ponds, and along streams.  Both species are used to people and their activities and conduct their daily lives around human activities.  Both are exciting to see and hear when they are in flight.  The geese honk excitedly as they fly in long lines or V formations.  And we can hear the whistling of the doves' wings when those birds are in speedy flight.  It's also a pleasure to hear the doves' melancholy cooing during warmer months.  And both species have bright futures because of their adapting to changing conditions.  Today, each one of these game birds has a large population throughout much of North America, in spite of hunting pressure, accidents, and predation on them and their young.  They bring much interesting, attractive life to lawns and fields.
     Mourning doves originally inhabited woodland edges where they nested in trees and fed on weed and grass seeds in bordering clearings.  Canada geese have traditionally raised young on marshy ground in eastern Canada and wintered around the Chesapeake Bay Area.
     However, European settlers in North America long ago cleared away deep forests to create farmland, producing fields that soon became dove habitats.  And in the 1960's, the flight feathers of some breeding pairs of Canada geese were removed so that those geese were forced to raise goslings in meadows and in suburban areas in the Lower 48 States, creating a new population of Canadas whose numbers have grown so much in places that these geese have become pests there, hence the hunting season on them.       
     Mourning doves raise two young in a clutch, and they can raise up to six broods of young during the warmer months of each year; a pair of youngsters a month, on average.  But they usually don't because of crows, raccoons and other predators on eggs and small young, or from wind pushing nest and young out of the trees.
     Doves build grass cradles in trees, particularly coniferous ones that offer better shelter from predators and wind.  And both parents pump a "porridge" of pre-digested seeds into their chicks' mouths until they are able to fly and get their own food in fields.
     Canada geese hatch four to six goslings per pair in grassy nurseries, surrounded by tall vegetation, near ponds and marshes.  But some pairs of Canadas nest in raised bridge supports, crow, heron or hawk cradles of sticks in trees, and in old tires mounted over water especially for the geese.  The goslings, which are fuzzy, wide-eyed and ready to feed themselves on plants soon after birth, must leap from those elevated nesting sites to the ground or water below.  
     Because of their adaptations to human-made habitats and activities, mourning doves and Canada geese are abundant in Pennsylvania and can take hunting pressure.  But they are also interesting, exciting and attractive birds on lawns and fields throughout much of North America where hunters and non-hunters alike can easily see and appreciate them.