Tuesday's Truths Week Five: Mourning Doves Sunbathe to Optimize Feathers

Yesterday a lone mourning dove came to my urban (NYC) rooftop garden to sunbathe, and, it wasn't an attempt to work on her suntan!
Sunbathing is an option mourning doves use to maintain their feather quality to keep them in top shape for flying. According to WBU in Michigan, "In late summer doves are growing new outer feathers... the heat of the sun might help make it easier for doves to shape their new feathers. And along with easing discomfort associated with molting, the sun may also help dislodge parasites so the bird can preen them off more easily."

The mourning doves that visit my garden have a number of impressive habits, and Cam, the cardinal who visited my garden and wrote a book about her experiences here, shares many interesting facts about this bird type in her story. Her book is called Words In Our Beak Volume One, and is available in Apple's iBooks Store.

Her book as received rave reviews in both of those venues as well as in Goodreads. Cam and I have been working on a sequel to her book but we have paused our efforts in order to allow me to convert volume one into a format for Small Editions to publish both soft and hard cover versions. If you'd like to receive updates on this venture, please sign up on my Mail Chimp list.

ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The non-hardcover version (or versions)  of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold. Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

MY BOOK SERIES

Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.