I've got a couple of Collared Doves nesting on an old satellite dish in the garden (I'm live streaming them at https://youtube.com/channel/UCuJayX2M9EkT_BnA6ZEHd-w/live) and I've tried putting out sunflower hearts and mixed seed in the ground feeder for them but they won't go near it. Plenty of regular pigeons and wood pigeons have been eating the sunflower hearts but not the doves. They can see the feeder, they watch the other pigeons eating the seed but never go down to have a look.Does anyone feed them and, if so, what is it that they prefer to eat?ThanksChris
Hi Chris, great for you to follow this family. I ope the wee ones hatch and the nest will be successful. I have Collard Doves and pigeons that come, only a few. I put out peanuts (not on the ground in the breeding sseason), premiumbird seed, sunflower hearts, Niger sseed, andfat balls/cakes. The sunflower/Niger and fat balls are in feeders but scatter seed and peanuts on the ground. We also have some pheasants that come, so I also scatter mixed grain to them. The doves and pigeons do pick away, so I would have thought at the seed and grain.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Thanks. I am doing everything right, then, they must just be fussy. Not once in the last year have I seen them eat anything! I'll persevere with the sunflower hearts, their cousins love them and eat a bowl full a day.
Mine peck away at sunflower hearts and suet pellets which I put in a small dish on the ground next to some water ️
I used to have at least a dozen Collared Doves at a time at the sunflower hearts feeder in my garden ... not a bit fussy as that was all there was simply because the hearts always fared best in wet weather!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Might sound counter intuitive, but you might be putting out too much food. Doves are lower down the pecking order....so to speak....they may well be feeling better off getting their food from elsewhere if you have plenty of pigeons.
The pair of collared doves in my cherry tree, eat sunflower seed and mixed bird seed, which they swallow whole, and peck away at fat balls on my window cill, here in France.