Do Mourning Doves Sleep in Pairs?

Mourning doves, like doves in general, often sleep alongside their mates during the mating season and through the development of the eggs. Once the males court the females and they're on their way to assembling their nests, they're solid twosomes. They're monogamous birds; some mourning doves stick with the same mate every breeding season until one passes away.

When mourning doves aren't breeding, they don't usually sleep in pairs. They're gregarious creatures during these times, roosting amid sizable flocks. Not only do they usually roost with their flocks, they also usually eat together, too. Their flocks sometimes consist of merely 20 individuals. They sometimes are markedly bigger, too, consisting of 50 doves or more.

Mourning doves feel secure when they roost in deciduous and coniferous trees. Other typical roosting locales for these doves are woodlots and thick clusters of bushes and trees. They also sometimes roost on parts of manmade structures, notably power lines. When mourning doves roost, they frequently do so in trees that are dead. They even regularly roost on farming sites, often right by rows of trees and shrubs that guard fields against aggressive breezes. Mourning doves smartly tend to roost close to reliable sustenance access, too.

The reproductive season for mourning doves typically begins in February and ends in October or so. During these times of the year, male and female mourning doves commonly roost together. It isn't uncommon for pairs to reproduce more than once in a season. They breed more when they have access to sufficient food. Common food staples for these doves are fruits and seeds. Once in a while, they dine on insects like beetles and grasshoppers. Mourning doves also have penchants for consuming cultivated crops, specifically oats, millet and corn, among others.