columbina talpacoti
Patagonia, Arizona — Paton Center for Hummingbirds
Sunday, May 8, 2022 — 5:11 pm
First of all, let me say that the Latin name of this bird sounds like a pasta dish at a fancy Italian restaurant.
This particular Ruddy Ground-Dove had been showing up on the rare bird reports all spring. Although I don’t get terribly excited about doves, I wanted to see it, of course. I was off by myself by the parking area, trying to get decent photos of the Violet-crowned Hummingbird, when the dove came to the feeders. It usually stays on the ground in and around a brush pile where the caretaker scatters seed, and that’s what it did this afternoon. I was a little put off when I found out it had been seen and nobody had mentioned it, but it soon returned, and I got good looks — along with everyone else. (The guy on the far left, and the woman on the right who is staring at me were married. They live out of their RV. I kept running into them at Paton’s, and we chatted regularly and joked around. When I saw them for the third or fourth time, I said, “If we keep meeting like this, we’ll have to exchange Christmas Cards.” They had a bumper sticker on their camper that said, “Don’t be condescending. That’s when you talk down to someone.”) The crowd is due to the bird’s rarity. It’s a Mexican species that only occasionally ventures north into the Southwestern states.
Back to the dove. It’s a little bit larger than, but otherwise similar to, the Common Ground-Doves that also came to the feeders from time to time. It lacks the scaled look on the breast that Common has (evident on the video). The Ruddy has a gray head and is otherwise a reddish-brown, like it was dipped in stain. It acted like a typical dove, walking slowly around making quick stabs at the ground for seed. On the first day, with a crowd of people watching, it hung around for maybe five minutes, never venturing far from the brush pile. It was near a couple Inca Doves, another small dove of the Southwest.
Two days later, I was by myself at Paton’s early in the morning. I spotted the dove again. It was more out in the open this time, feeding with a Common Ground-Dove and a White-winged Dove, giving good side-by-side comparisons. (See the second two clips on the video.)
The Ruddy Ground-Dove is the blurry bird in the background. The one in the foreground is a Common Ground-Dove.
The first two clips on the video were taken on Sunday afternoon, the last two early Tuesday morning. In the latter, the Ruddy is feeding with a slightly-smaller Common Ground-Dove and a much larger White-winged Dove.