What Does a Mourning Dove Sound Like? Not an Owl

The song: cooOOoo, woo, woo, woo

The best-known sound of the mourning dove is the male’s song, sometimes called the perch coo. It lasts only a few seconds:

1. a soft, slightly raspy opening note that swells upward and falls again, “cooOOoo”
2. followed by two or three lower, steady coos, “woo, woo, woo”

The song is repeated at intervals, often for many minutes. It is low-pitched and carries a long way, especially on still mornings, which is why it can be hard to tell where it is coming from.

Like other pigeons and doves, a mourning dove coos with its bill closed. The throat and neck visibly puff out as air is pushed into a stretchy part of the esophagus, which works like a resonating chamber and gives the call its soft, hollow tone.

What the calls mean

Mourning doves have a small set of calls, each with a clear purpose.

• Perch coo (song): given by unpaired males from a perch to attract a female and advertise a nesting area. You hear it most from late winter through summer, during the long breeding season.
• Nest call: a shorter, quieter version of the song, given by paired males sitting at a possible nest site to invite the female over.
• Soft grunts: a brief, low “ork” or grunt used between mates up close.
• Alarm call: a short “roo-oo” or similar note given by either sex when a predator or person comes near.

Because only the male gives the full song, a dove calling over and over from the same wire or rooftop in spring is almost always a male looking for a mate or guarding a nest.

The whistling wings

The other famous mourning dove sound does not come from its throat. When a dove bursts into flight or brakes to land, its wings make a loud, high-pitched, twittering whistle. In steady flight the sound is much fainter.

Sounds made by feathers instead of the voice are called sonations. Scientists suspect the mourning dove’s wing whistle may act as an alarm: a dove that takes off in panic beats its wings harder, making a louder whistle that could warn others nearby. Experiments with the crested pigeon of Australia have shown that its wing whistle works as an alarm signal, and similar effects are suspected in other doves. Mourning doves can also clap their wings together on take-off during display flights.

How to tell a mourning dove from an owl

The easiest clues are timing, rhythm and tone.

The great horned owl, North America’s classic hooting owl, has a much deeper voice, and its hoots have a stuttering rhythm rather than the dove’s slow, falling cadence. Barred owls are louder and more varied, sometimes breaking into wild cackles. If you can see the bird calling in daylight from a wire or rooftop, it is almost certainly a dove. You can learn more about owl voices in owls of North America.

Other doves that coo

Several other doves share the mourning dove’s range, and their songs help identify them.

• Eurasian collared dove: a three-part “coo-COO-coo”, repeated many times, plus a harsh, nasal call in flight. It reached Florida from the Bahamas in the 1980s and has since spread across much of North America.
• Rock pigeon (city pigeon): a soft, gurgling, rolling “coo-roo-coo”, usually given while a male struts and bows; compare the two birds in dove vs pigeon.
• White-winged dove: a rhythmic “who-cooks-for-you”, the same phrase birders use for the barred owl, common in the Southwest, Texas and Florida.
• Inca dove: a two-note “no-hope” repeated endlessly, in the Southwest.
• Common ground dove: a rising “woo-up” repeated in a long series, in the southern states.

When and why they call most

Mourning doves sing most in spring and early summer, when males are setting up nests and courting females. Because they can nest many times a year, singing continues for months in southern areas. Like many birds, they call strongly in the early morning, part of the dawn chorus explained in why do birds sing at dawn?

The species gets its name from the mournful sound of the song. It has nothing to do with sadness or bad luck, and the name is “mourning”, not “morning”, even though the birds are often heard at dawn.