Mourning Dove - Sounds

Sounds

This species' call is a distinctive, plaintive cooOOoo-woo-woo-woooo, uttered by males to attract a mate, and may be mistaken for the call of an owl at first. (Close up, a grating or throat-rattling sound may be heard preceding the first coo.) Other sounds include a nest call (cooOOoo) by paired males to attract their mates to the nest sites, a greeting call (a soft ork) by males upon rejoining their mates, and an alarm call (a short roo-oo) by either male or female when threatened. In flight, the wings make a fluttery whistling sound that is hard to hear. The wing whistle is much louder and more noticeable upon take-off and landing.

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