With their soft, earth toned feathers and gentle coo-ing song, many of us are familiar with the mourning dove. Mourning doves are common birds and can be found throughout the United States. You probably see them in the park or on the ground, and may have wondered, do mourning doves eat at bird feeders?
Mourning doves will not typically eat seed from a bird feeder, unless the feeder used is an open tray or platform.
What do mourning doves eat?
Mourning doves are primarily seed eaters, and seeds make up about 99% of their diet. In the wild, this mostly includes:
- wild grass seeds
- weed seeds
- herb seeds
- cultivated grains
Less commonly mourning doves may be seen eating:
- snails
- berries
What birdseed do mourning doves eat?
Since mourning doves eat seeds and grains, it’s hard to go wrong with most bird seeds or seed blends. Since they mainly forage for seeds and grains, smaller seeds tend to be best. Or if the seed / nut is large, make sure what you are offering is broken into smaller pieces.
The best bird seed to feed to mourning doves tends to be milo, millet, safflower and cracked corn. They will also sometimes eat nyjer, sorghum and oats.
Will mourning doves eat sunflower?
Sunflower is probably one of the most common backyard seeds used in feeders, so you may be wondering if doves will eat it. Yes, mourning doves will eat sunflower, but make sure you choose black oil or shelled.
The beaks of these doves are not as thick as some other birds, and they will not be able to crack the shell of the larger sunflower seeds, such as the striped sunflower. Black oil sunflower will work fine for doves, or even better hulled sunflower where the shell has already been removed.
Will mourning doves eat peanuts?
Another popular backyard offering is peanuts, since many birds love them. Mourning doves will eat peanuts, but they should be broken into small pieces. Make sure you don’t offer peanuts still in the shell. Whole peanuts, or even halved peanuts are probably still too big. Stick to peanut pieces.
Things mourning doves probably won’t eat
As we mentioned above, the beak of the mourning dove isn’t made for tough shells or nuts. So peanuts in the shell, whole peanuts, striped sunflower, walnuts, acorns or other large nuts will not be appealing to doves.
Suet typically is not a food mourning doves will eat. They won’t cling to suet feeders and don’t have a good beak for breaking off suet pieces. Perhaps if you crumbled up the suet into small bits and scattered it on the ground, they may eat some.
Since mourning doves only occasionally eat berries or insects, they are usually not interested in these foods at the feeder. Pieces of dried fruit or mealworms may possibly be eaten, but it would be uncommon for doves to be attracted to these foods.