A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall The Critter Corner doves eating thistle

wanted to share this picture of my doves eating from my thistle feeder. I started feeding the goldfinches and lo and behold i have a pair of doves that just love this stuff. Has any one seen doves eating the thistle seed before?

sorry forgot to paste the picture in

Theyre so pretty! I feed thistle mixed with other seeds so mine may eat it and I just cant tell.

my doves never get up in my feeders but tend to stay on the ground eating the droppings so I was surprised to see them in the the thistle feeder. checked out your photo on gardening and love your bee balm. I have some, but doesn't seem to look as nice as others I've seen. Just planted some today that was given to me.

My doves are usually on the ground too. Probably they saw the seed catcher tray as a 'ledge' and just hopped on board.

My bee balam is in a pretty acidy loose soil. I had some once is a heavy clay soil that didnt do near so well.

that is probably my problem with my bee balm. it is a hard packed soil. I'll have to think on moving it and I do have acidy soil. thanks for the info.

Doves are ground/platform feeders, but will visit hanging feeders if the feeders are big enough. Doves like many different kinds of seed, so it doesn't surprise me that they like thistle seed, either. Black Oil Sunflower seed (BOSS) is one of the FAVORITE seeds of doves as well as many other birds.