Flora and Fauna News

White-winged Doves
Are Back!

By Michael Plagens
Sonoran Desert Sciences

PHOENIX ----- White-winged Doves (Zenaida asiatica), which had been trickling back into the Sonoran Desert over the past two months, have finally arrived in large numbers. These doves are considerbly larger than their year-round-resident cousins, the Mourning Doves. In flight, White-winged Doves sport a distinctive white patch about midpoint in each wing, and the tail is squared off rather than tapered.

After spending the past seven months in the warmer parts of Mexico and Central America, white-wings are ready for the onslaught of intense summer heat. Mating and nest building are the first order of business with males actively cooing their prospective mates from dawn to dusk and females searching out prospective nest sites. Within the cities white-wings can often be seen foraging in Bermuda grass lawns where they nip off tender flowering buds. In the Sonoran Desert the return of White-winged Doves coincides with the ripening of ocotillo seeds, an important food supply. In about two weeks the saguaro cactus will begin blooming where white-wings find another important food supply in the form of nectar and pollen. The most important food for white-wings will be the ripening saguaro fruit at the end of June; by then the white-wings' eggs will have hatched and the nestlings will demand lots of food.

The White-Winged Doves may be ready for the summer heat, but are we?

Plant Eating Insects Move to into City

PHOENIX, Az. ----- Rainfall during the winter of 2008-2009 produced good plant growth in some areas of the deserts and foothills, but now the plants have mostly dried. Numbers of moths, grasshoppers, and seed bugs have gravitated to the well-watered city environs where they sometimes make pests of themselves by feeding on cultivated plants. The grasshoppers, mostly Pallid-winged Grasshoppers, are good fliers and large numbers can be seen swirling beneath lights, especially mercury vapor lights at auto dealerships. Seed bugs will sometimes bite people with the intent of finding some moisture; normally they are strictly vegetarians.

A White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica) feeds upon the seeds and fruit of the saguaro cactus (Photo taken end of June 2002).