Life History of the Ruddy Ground Dove

The Ruddy Ground Dove, also called the Talpacoti Ground Dove (CoZumbigaZZina td@coti), a species hardly larger than a sparrow, is found from southern Mexico through much of Central and South America to eastern Peru and northern Argentina. The male has a grayish head, cinnamon-brown upper plumage, warm reddish-chestnut wings with two black bars on the coverts, and russet-vinaceous under parts. The female is paler, more grayish and brown, with usually only a faint wash of the male’s ruddy color on her breast and wings. The eyes of both sexes, when viewed in a strong light, are red; those of the male are a deeper red than those of the female, but in the shade the irides of both appear black. Their bills are light horn-color with a darker tip; their feet are reddish-pink. In Central America these doves are found on both coasts and range upward into the foothills to an altitude of about 3500 feet. They thrive best among the vegetation of the cultivated lands in regions of abundant rainfall that were formerly covered by heavy forest. They are numerous throughout the Caribbean lowlands wherever the forest has been destroyed, in the southern and central parts of the Pacific slope and lowlands of Costa Rica, and amid the coffee plantations on the lower Pacific slope of Guatemala. In somewhat more arid regions, as about the head of the Gulf of Nicoya, they mingle with the Common Ground Dove (CoZumbigaZZina passer&a), but they do not follow it into still drier areas where cacti are more numerous, nor do they extend half as far above sea level as this hardier and more adaptable congener. However, in the regions of heavy rain-forest where the Ruddy Ground Dove is most abundant, the Common Ground Dove is absent. The Ruddy Ground Dove dwells among the cultivated lands and pastures, and it is found in the weedy vegetation on neglected fields until this growth becomes high enough to exclude the sunshine from the ground. I have never seen it in the forest. It likes best to forage on bare and open ground, especially in the vicinity of human dwellings and cowsheds, where ten or twenty may gather in a flock, sometimes in company with Blue Ground Doves (CZaravis pretiosa). What they so industriously gather from the bare earth is difficult to determine, but probably they pick up small seeds and insects. The call of the Ruddy Ground Dove is a soft R&y-woo, uttered by both sexes. This dove also delivers a simple, low coo, and I have heard the male give a phrase which may be written too-oo-woo. The voice of the male is slightly deeper and fuller than that of the female. One female while brooding nestlings called ~‘CUZPIU, ~‘CUWU.