[Birdtalk] Roosting flight of Mourning Doves

[Mark Stackhouse]

While playing frisbee with my fourteen-year-old son (yes I hurt now) in 
Sugarhouse Park during the waning light this evening, we saw something 
which I've never seen in Utah - an amazing roosting flight of Mourning 
Doves. They were flying east through the lower part of the park, over 
the fields to the north of the stream. They were heading towards 
Highland High School, but may have gone into trees before reaching the 
school. They were only about 20-50 above the ground. I would guess that 
there were about 250-300 birds passing in about 15 minutes - that 
fiendish, I mean Finnish, bird-counting game helped with the estimate. 
I think my count should be within 25% :-).

Mourning Doves have been increasing now for many years in this part of 
town, but I've never seen even close to this many. It would be 
interesting to see if this was a one-time event, or a nightly 
occurrence. It happened at about 5:30 p.m.

Mark Stackhouse
mark at westwings.com
801-487-9453 (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)
011-52-323-285-1243 (San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico)