Mourning Dove (redirected from Zenaida macroura)

mourning dove

Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura)

(credit: Alvin E. Staffan—The National Audubon Society Collection/Photo Researchers)

Species (Zenaida macroura) of pigeon (family Columbidae), the common wild pigeon of North America. They have long, pointed tails, and the sides of the neck are violet and pink. Their name comes from their call's haunting, mournful tone. Mourning doves are migratory; the northernmost populations migrate the farthest south. They are popular game birds. See also dove.

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Mourning Dove (b. Humishima or Christine Quintasket) (1888–1936) Okanogan/Colville writer, activist; born in Bonner's Ferry, Ida. A migrant worker in Washington most of her adult life, she wrote one of the few early novels by a Native American woman, Cogewea, the Half-Blood (1927), as well as Coyote Stories (1933). She also cofounded the Colville Indian Council (1930) and in 1935 became the first woman elected to the Colville Tribal Council.