Attracting Birds
How to Attract Mourning Doves
Doves are the one common feeder bird that wants the opposite of what everyone else wants: flat open ground, a long view in every direction, and no shrub close enough to hide a cat.
The short answer
- Feed them on a low tray or clean bare ground. Doves are poor perchers and mostly ignore hanging tube feeders.
- White proso millet is the top dove seed, with cracked corn, black oil sunflower and safflower close behind.
- Site the tray in the open with 20 feet (6 m) of clear sightline, not tucked against a hedge. Doves watch for danger rather than hiding from it.
- Doves swallow seed whole and grind it later, so they need grit and they need water daily.
- If the flock gets too large, cut the ground seed rather than the feeder, and switch the hanging feeders to short-perch tubes.
Mourning doves are already in your neighborhood. They are one of the most widespread and abundant birds in North America, they do not need woods, and they are equally at home on a suburban roofline and a farm fence. Getting them into your yard is almost entirely a question of giving them a flat, open place to feed.
The mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) is the slim, long-tailed, soft brown bird whose wings whistle sharply on takeoff and whose mournful cooing gets mistaken for an owl. Adults are about 12 inches (30 cm) long, most of which is tail.
This page covers the tray and seed that work, the placement rule that runs opposite to every other attracting guide on this site, the grit and water they need, and what to do when four doves become fourteen.
Open ground, not cover: the placement rule reversed#
Most feeder birds want dense cover within one short flight. Doves do not. They are open-country foragers that rely on seeing a predator coming and on an explosive, noisy takeoff to escape it. A tray pushed up against a hedge reads to a dove as a place where something can be waiting.
Give a dove tray 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 m) of clear ground on at least two sides, with trees or wires nearby for perching but not overhanging. That combination, open floor plus elevated lookouts, is what a dove is looking for. It is close to the opposite of the advice in where to hang a bird feeder, which is written for chickadees and cardinals, so treat the dove tray as its own station rather than moving your main feeder.
The one-line version
Doves want a clean flat surface, millet, an unobstructed view, and water. If your yard has all four they will find it within days, because they are almost certainly already flying over it.
The tray, and why hanging feeders fail#
A dove is heavy-bodied with short legs and weak grip. It cannot balance on a 3/4 inch (2 cm) perch, and it will not cling to mesh. Given only a hanging tube feeder, doves feed on the spilled seed underneath and nothing else.
Three arrangements work, in rough order of preference:
- A ground feeder or catch tray with a mesh floor that drains, raised an inch or two off the soil so seed does not sit in mud.
- A platform feeder on a pole 3 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 m) up. Doves use these readily, and the height keeps the seed cleaner and out of reach of most rodents.
- Bare ground or a patio slab, swept daily. Cheapest, and the fastest to cause problems.
Whichever you pick, put out only what will be eaten in a day. Seed left on the ground overnight feeds rodents, and wet seed on soil is the shortest route to the mold and disease risks described in moldy, clumped seed.
Seed for doves, ranked#
| Seed | Dove appeal | Where to offer it | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| White proso millet | Very high | Ground tray, platform | Also feeds house sparrows and cowbirds |
| Cracked corn | Very high | Ground tray only | Molds fast; pulls in deer, rodents, grackles |
| Black oil sunflower | High | Platform, tray | Doves take it whole, shell and all |
| Safflower | High | Platform | Squirrel and grackle resistant; costs more |
| Sunflower hearts | High | Covered tray | No hulls, but spoils quickly when damp |
| Nyjer | Very low | Finch feeder | Not a dove food |
Straight white millet on a tray is the most dove-specific option available. Cracked corn works just as well but brings the longest list of side effects, so use it in small daily amounts or not at all.
Grit and water, which most people skip#
Doves do not crack seeds. They swallow them whole into a crop that can hold a startling quantity, then fly to a perch and grind the load in the gizzard using swallowed grit. Without hard particles that process is less efficient, so coarse sand, crushed eggshell or poultry grit in a small dish near the tray is genuinely useful. The handling and sterilizing rules for eggshell are in grit, calcium and eggshells.
Doves also drink daily, and they drink unusually: rather than lifting the head to swallow, they put the bill in and suck continuously. A bird bath with a shallow edge and a rough surface underfoot gets heavy dove use, and in dry regions it will pull doves in faster than the seed does.
The seasonal pattern#
Mourning doves are year-round residents through most of the lower 48 states, but the northern population is partly migratory, so numbers in the far north drop sharply in late fall and recover in March.
Winter is when a dove flock is most obvious. Cold weather concentrates birds on reliable food, and a tray that held three doves in July can hold twenty in January. That is also when doves benefit most, since bare frozen ground offers them very little. There is more on cold-weather provisioning in winter bird feeding.
In spring and summer, doves nest early and repeatedly, sometimes three or more broods, on nests so flimsy you can see the eggs from below. Both parents feed the young on crop milk, which is why a nesting pair keeps visiting a seed tray hard through the summer.
Do not let a dove tray become a hawk trap
Feeder flocks attract Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks, and doves are a preferred prey item. That is natural, but you can avoid making it easy: keep the tray away from a hedge or fence line a hawk can use as a screened approach, and if a hawk starts hunting your yard daily, take everything down for a week or two and let it move on.
When there are too many doves#
A dove flock is self-reinforcing: spilled millet on the ground brings more doves, which spill more seed. Capping it is straightforward if you work in this order.
- Stop all ground scattering. Feed only from a tray you can empty.
- Remove cracked corn and millet-heavy mixes from the hanging feeders. Switch to straight sunflower or safflower.
- Fit short perches. Tubes with perches under 1 inch (2.5 cm) exclude doves entirely, and a caged feeder excludes them absolutely.
- Reduce the tray to one small daily portion, put out in the morning and finished by dusk.
- Rake up the hulls. The debris field under a feeder is what keeps a flock, plus the rodents, in place. Tactics are in seed mess, hulls and dead grass.
Expect a week of adjustment. Doves are persistent and will keep checking, but they move on to better ground once the return drops.
Doves as an early warning system
A yard full of doves that suddenly goes silent, with every bird flushing at once and the wings clattering, almost always means a hawk is in the area. Learning that sound saves you a lot of guessing about why the feeder went quiet.
Cats, and the risk of feeding at ground level#
Ground-feeding birds are the ones cats catch. A dove on a tray is slow off the mark compared with a chickadee, and it feeds head-down for long stretches.
Keep the tray in the open, away from anything that provides a stalking approach: low fences, dense border planting, garden furniture, woodpiles. Where free-roaming cats are common, use a raised platform rather than a ground tray and read cats and bird feeders before choosing the spot.
A dove setup that works#
- A low platform or ground tray with a draining mesh floor, 3 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 m) up or raised slightly off the soil.
- White proso millet, one day's worth at a time, with sunflower or safflower added if you want cardinals and jays on the same tray.
- Sited with 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 m) of open ground, trees or wires nearby for perching, nothing close enough to hide a cat.
- A shallow water source and a small dish of grit within a few yards.
- Swept and emptied daily, and washed with hot soapy water once a week.
Run that for two weeks and you will know whether doves are interested. In most of the country they will be there on day three, standing in the middle of the lawn, waiting for you to go back inside.
Frequently asked questions#
What is the best food for mourning doves?
White proso millet, offered on a low tray or on clean ground. Cracked corn, black oil sunflower and safflower all work as well, and doves will clean up sunflower hearts and seed knocked down from hanging feeders. They will not use nyjer in any quantity.
What kind of feeder do mourning doves use?
Ground trays and open platform feeders. A dove needs room to stand, turn and take off, so anything with a perch shorter than its body is a poor fit. A platform mounted 3 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 m) up works as well as a ground tray and stays drier.
Why do doves sit under my feeder instead of on it?
That is normal foraging. Mourning doves are ground gleaners that pick up spilled seed under hanging feeders, and many yards never see a dove land on the feeder itself. Putting a catch tray or a low platform underneath turns that habit into a cleaner, more reliable arrangement.
How do I get rid of too many mourning doves?
Stop scattering seed on the ground and remove cracked corn and cheap millet-heavy mixes, which are what supports a large flock. Switch hanging feeders to tubes with perches under 1 inch (2.5 cm), and let a few days pass. The flock usually thins within a week without disappearing entirely.
Do mourning doves need grit?
Yes. Doves swallow seed whole into the crop and grind it in the gizzard, which requires hard particles such as coarse sand or fine gravel. They usually find their own on driveways and roadsides, but a small dish of crushed eggshell or poultry grit near the tray is used readily.