Went out today after a week's rest on the doves; the whitewing numbers were incredible, swirling around a 5-acre patch of woods. Very tough to pattern their flyways, just random large loops around these woods and some woods about 1/4 mile away.
Hunting solo (with dog), I bagged nine, and they were the fattest doves I have ever cleaned. Yellow skin, plus fat globs inside the body cavity. Again this year we have found grain (milo) in their craw, but also very common to find the gum bumelia seeds packed in their craw. The pic is from a couple of yrs ago; today all the seeds were the purple/black "fruit" that is soft with the hard seed inside.
Had to de-grease my hands to type this message !

Can you describe this plant? Is it a medium size tree with small leaves and thorns?

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Can you describe this plant? Is it a medium size tree with small leaves and thorns?

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Bumelia lanuginosa

Found this old thread about what doves eat, and again this year the most common "seed" found in the whitewings craw's were the gum bumelia...though I have yet to actually see one of these trees (or if I did, didn't see the fruit/seed).

One of the WW's had a craw packed with this:


And some of the mourning doves had a similar small seed, and others had been finding sorghum/maize.

Found this pic of the bumelia on an aggie-horticulture site: quite sure I have cut/sprayed these on a regular basis along fencelines, while still a "shrub".

When fruiting, gum bumelia are PACKED with white wings like grackles over my truck in Fish Lot.

We had some birds with some very small seed in it, that was white. I wish I would have snapped a pic, as I was curious as to what it was. The seed was about half the size of a full sesame seed I have seen in South Texas bird craws. It was an off white/light grey color. I wasn't round, but was sort of flat rectangular. I was wondering if it could have been very young sunflower seeds or something?