Mourning Dove Banding Program

One of the most widely distributed and abundant birds in North America, mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) are valued by birders and hunters alike. A habitat generalist, mourning doves can be found in rural as well as urban habitats, and seemingly have benefited from changes to the landscape brought on by humans. A common migrant and summer resident throughout Illinois, some will winter in the state while others migrate to southern states and into Mexico and Central America.

In the United States, mourning dove harvest is managed separately in three discrete regions (Eastern, Central and Western). Doves in each of the three management units typically show little movement between regions during nesting, migration and wintering periods. Illinois is part of the Eastern Management Unit (EMU) which includes 26 states east of the Mississippi River and Louisiana.

In 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) estimated there were about 243 million mourning doves in the United States and approximately 66 million doves occurred in the Eastern Management Unit (EMU). An estimated 11.6 million doves were harvested in the United States during the 2017-18 hunting season and approximately 4.8 million were harvested in the EMU.

To help maintain a healthy, productive population, the USFWS initiated development of a Mourning Dove National Strategic Harvest Management Plan. Adopted in 2003, the plan identified the need to consider survival, recruitment and harvest rates when setting hunting regulations. Much of this information is derived from banding data. Thus, a national-scale banding study was initiated in 2003, with Illinois joining the banding effort in 2006. In 2009, results from the national banding program were used to set annual banding goals for each of the lower 48 states. Banding goals vary by state and provide sample sizes necessary to meet objectives of the banding program. Illinois has approached or exceeded recommended banding levels every year except in 2013 when biologists had difficulty capturing juvenile doves, largely due to a late spring and widespread spring storms that year.

Banding takes place throughout most of the United States in July and August. In 2017 more than 43,000 mourning doves were banded with slightly more than 16,000 doves banded in the EMU and about 2,200 doves banded in Illinois. I was fortunate to be invited to ride along with Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) District Wildlife Biologist Bryan Eubanks on his last banding day for the 2018 season. Eubanks and fellow biologist Doug Brown trap and band doves at four sites in Coles, Cumberland and Effingham counties. Banding efforts typically take place in 20 to 25 Illinois counties to provide an accurate representation of the dove population, at both regional and statewide levels.

“As doves are banded we track whether they are young of the year (referred to as hatch year or HY) or adults (after hatch year, or AHY),” Eubanks explained. “The key to aging a dove is to examine the wing coverts, with the tips on young birds being buffy tipped and ratty looking. The feathers on adults are solid gray.”

Sexing immature birds is not possible, but data on the male-female ratio of adult birds is collected. Adult males are grayer than females, with a powder-blue head, pink breast and iridescence above the neck. Females have darker heads and are more chocolate-brown in color.

Dan Holm, a project manager with IDNR’s Wetland Wildlife Program, prepares an annual report of the Illinois morning dove banding activities. In 2018, Holm reported that the statewide banding age ratio was 1.85 immature birds for each adult, which is 16 percent above the 10-year average.

“A variety of factors can influence the annual production for doves,” Holm said. “Spring migration begins in late March, and resident birds may begin to construct their flimsy platform nests as early as March. In central Illinois, peak nesting activity often occurs in late April and May. As a result, a variety of weather-related factors, such as the onset of spring weather and severity and timing of spring storms, can impact the annual production.”

Federal bird bands have the inscription “www.reportband.gov” and a unique series of eight or nine numbers. Older bands may have different inscriptions, but all federal bands can be reported at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Report a Bird with a Federal Band or Color Marker site. For banded doves recovered and reported by hunters in Illinois from 2006-2017, most (89 percent) were banded in Illinois; the remaining 11 percent represented doves banded in Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Ontario, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Migratory bird hunters, including dove hunters, are required by law to register with USFWS’s National Migratory Bird Harvest Information Program. A sample of hunters are asked to record information on date, location and number of birds taken. From those reports, the USFWS estimated mourning dove harvest in Illinois during the 2016-2017 hunting season was 316,600, with harvest increasing the following season to 344,900. Between 2013 and 2017 the Illinois harvest averaged 350,500 birds annually.

Biologists utilize band encounter information to help monitor changes in the annual status of mourning doves and set harvest regulations that maximize recreational opportunities while protecting the population. If you harvest a banded bird, submit the band numbers along with when and where you harvested it to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory and you will be emailed a Certificate of Appreciation with information about when and where the bird was banded. Those reports tell us that between 2006 and 2017, mourning dove hunters reported 950 recoveries from doves banded by IDNR biologists. Of those recoveries, 845 (89 percent) were harvested in Illinois. In addition to being recovered in Illinois, doves banded in Illinois were harvested in 17 other states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

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Kathy Andrews Wright is retired from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources where she was editor of Outdoor Illinois magazine. She is currently the editor of Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal and Illinois Audubon magazine.