{"id":792,"date":"2006-02-05T16:54:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-05T16:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/?p=792"},"modified":"2006-02-05T16:54:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-05T16:54:00","slug":"a-white-winged-dove-winter-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/a-white-winged-dove-winter-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A White-winged Dove winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What causes shifts in bird populations from season to season? I know that extremely cold weather brings the Harris’s Sparrows <\/a>to my backyard feeders. An occasional White-crowned Sparrow <\/a>will also show up when the food is scarce because of snow cover. This winter has been unusually warm and dry, creating conditions for wildfires across Oklahoma. How has this shift in weather affected the birds in my yard? Well, the Harris’s are a rare sighting and I haven’t seen any unusual sparrows. The American Goldfinch <\/a>numbers are way down, due in part (my theory) to the abundance of dried seed-bearing wildflowers still standing in nearby fields. \"\"<\/a>The exciting news, however, is the significant increase in White-winged Doves <\/a>in my backyard! The appearance of this favorite bird has increased from numbers as small as one-a-day to more than 20 at one time. It’s been several years since I’ve seen that many of this rare dove in the yard. Their numbers decreased last year in direct proportion to the increase in the number of Eurasian Collared-Doves<\/a> at the feeders. Now, I’m happy to see their return in such significant numbers while the Collared-Dove numbers are still high (more than 20 at a time).<\/p>\n

The White-winged Dove is native to the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas and is a rare sighting in Oklahoma. In Texas the White-wings migrate to Mexico during the winter months. The ones that are resident to Oklahoma are very gregarious and appear to fare well in Oklahoma’s winter weather. With the mild weather we had in January, perhaps conditions are even more favorable for them. The White-winged Doves show up first thing in the morning but are easily spooked by the Sharp-shinned Hawks. In the afternoon though, they are usually seen feed on BirdCam #2 <\/a>from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. Visit the Backyard BirdCam <\/a>in the afternoon (Central Time) and enjoy watching these beautiful birds!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

What causes shifts in bird populations from season to season? I know that extremely cold weather brings the Harris’s Sparrows to my backyard feeders. An occasional White-crowned Sparrow will also show up when the food is scarce because of snow cover. This winter has been unusually warm and dry, creating conditions for wildfires […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.backyardbirdcam.com\/birdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}