today's bird is...... 🥁🥁🥁 the mourning dove!! a graceful, slender-tailed, small-headed dove that’s common across the continent. mourning doves perch on telephone wires and forage for seeds on the ground ; their flight is fast and bullet straight. their soft, drawn-out calls sound like laments. when taking off, their wings make a sharp whistling or whinnying. mourning doves are the most frequently hunted species in north america. look for mourning doves on telephone wires and similar perches throughout your neighborhood, or keep an eye on patches of bare ground, where the birds gather to stock up on seeds and grit. mourning doves tend to feed busily on the ground, swallowing seeds and storing them in an enlargement of the esophagus called the crop. once they’ve filled it (the record is 17,200 bluegrass seeds in a single crop!), they can fly to a safe perch to digest the meal. mourning doves eat roughly 12 to 20 percent of their body weight per day, or 71 calories on average.