White-tipped Dove

About the White-tipped Dove

The White-tipped Dove is the shy, ground-loving dove of the South Texas thorn forest - a plump, plain, pale gray-brown dove with a whitish forehead and belly, an iridescent purplish sheen on the neck in good light, and the white tail corners that name it, flashed as it flushes. Its most distinctive feature is the sound: a low, mournful, two-note "whooo-oooo" like someone blowing across a bottle.

It walks slowly across the shaded forest floor picking up seeds and fallen fruit, keeps to cover, and rockets off with loud wing-claps when surprised. At refuge feeding stations it will come out into the open with the doves and jays, which is the easiest way to see one well.

In Texas the White-tipped Dove is a year-round resident of the Rio Grande Valley and the brush country north to about the Coastal Bend, reaching the United States only in Texas.