White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica
White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica asiatica. Photograph taken within a residential community in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, October 2022. Photograph and identification courtesy of Faith Hubsch, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica asiatica. Bird photographed within Bosque de San Juan de Aragón, Mexico City, April 2021. Photograph and identification courtesy of Marina Sutormina, Stockholm, Sweden.
White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica asiatica. Birds photographed within Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, March 2021. Photographs and identification courtesy of Marina Sutormina, Stockholm, Sweden.
White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica mearnsi. Photographs taken within a residential community in the greater Los Cabos area, Baja California Sur, November 2016. Photographs courtesy of Carol Snow, Del Mar, California.
White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica mearnsi. Photograph taken within a residential community in Alamos, Sonora, November 2018. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.
The White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica asiatica and Zenaida asiatica mearnsi, are two of four sub-species of White-winged Dove, two of which are found in Mexico. They are a member of the Columbidae Family of Pigeons and Doves, which has three hundred forty-eight members placed in forty-nine genera, and one of seven global species of the Zenaida Genus. They are known in Mexico as zenaida aliblanca.
The White-winged Dove is medium-sized in stature. They vary significantly in size and color individually and geographically. They are heavily bodied with a square tail and are mainly grayish brown in color with a prominent white-wing patch across the outer wing coverts contrasting with a blackish upper surface of flight feathers. They have a black streak across the lower ear covers. The bare skin around the eyes is bright blue; their iris is bright orange. The adults have bright pinkish-red feet that become brilliant during breeding season. The juveniles are similar to the adults but lack the black cheek patch, have dull brown feet, smaller heads and a brown to light orange iris.
The White-winged Dove are found in humid to semiarid, dense, thorny woodlands, cactus-palo-verde deserts and riparian woodlands at elevations up to 2,600 m (8,500 feet). They primarily fruits and seeds. The White-winged Dove has been poorly studied and very limited information about their behavioral patterns and biology has been documented.
The White-winged Dove has wide distribution within Mexico being found throughout the country with the exception that are absent from the interior regions of the Yucatán Peninsula. The asiatica subspecies is found throughout eastern Mexico and within the Pacific slope of southeast Oaxaca south to Guatemala. The mearnsi subspecies is found within Baja California Sur and in west-central Mexico from Sonora south to Guerrero and Puebla. The northern populations migrate short distances for the winter while the southern populations are non-migratory and year-round residents.
From a conservation perspective the White-winged Dove is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. Historically they have been pursued by recreational hunters and have been a popular game species.