Dove

Description

Doves are common birds found in several variations across Creation. They are stout of body, with short necks, short legs, and short slender bills. Their wing muscles are strong, making them powerful and manoeuvrable fliers when they take to the air… many who observe them note they seem to take particular joy in the act of flying even when it seems to serve no purpose.

Their diet consists of fruit, seeds, nuts, and other plants, occasionally supplemented by insects.

Breeding

Doves build relatively flimsy nests from sticks and other debris, which may be placed in trees, on ledges, or on the ground, depending on variation and local environment. The male gathers material while the female constructs the nest itself, and feces is not cleared away as the nest is re-used, binding the mass together. Both parents care for the young, referred to as ‘squabs’, which leave the nest within a month, and this care includes crop milk supplied by both sexes. A female pigeon may raise up to one brood each season in good conditions, with the same or different males.

Male doves attract mates by claiming a nesting location and then performing a mating dance around a prospective mate, puffing up their throats and cooing as they circle her.

Variants

Five variants can be found across Creation.

Wood Dove

Also known as the East Dove. The wood dove is a bird of the deep Eastern forests. It is very dark in colouration, soot-black with brighter iridescent purple crown and rump, and iridescent green back and chest. Wood doves are known to favour the fruits of Orchard Mushrooms.

Rufous Dove

Also known as the South Dove. The rufous dove has a wedge-shaped tail, cinnamon-coloured wings with blue-grey back and head, and a black-and-white-striped patch on the side of the neck. It favours rocky ground, fields, and sparse trees of the coastal South, and is not reported to dwell in the deeper desert regions.

Crowned Dove

Also known as the West Dove. These doves are the largest of doves, found amongst the jungle islands of the Western Threshold and sometimes kept as ornamental birds amidst the gardens of the Scarlet Dynasty. They are blue-gray color with a small dark mask and a white-tipped crest of feathers atop its head. Its chest is a deep purple-maroon colour. It is known to particularly enjoy Western Plums.

Journey Dove

Also known as the North Dove. These doves are particularly adept at long-distance flying. Male journey doves have greyish upperparts, while females have brownish, gold iridescent on the sides of the neck, both having bright throats and breasts of orange-pink, fading to lighter pink down the belly and white under the long, forked tail. Journey doves are migratory, travelling across the Northern Threshold in massive flocks containing hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of birds, nesting communally to eat and breed where they find good conditions. The sound of their flocks is nearly deafening, and they fly so tightly packed that they can block out the light of the Unconquered Sun as they move overhead.

Rock Dove

Also known as the Central Dove. Originally native to the Blessed Isle, the rock dove is perhaps the most numerous dove in Creation. Its favoured nesting sites are on high ledges and holes in cliffs, either amongst mountains or along coasts. The eaves of buildings, similar to their natural environment, attract rock doves in droves, and they can now be found living in cities across Creation. Their plumage is grey, iridescent along the neck, throat, with black wing bars and tail tip.

White Dove

A rare variant of the Rock Dove, White Doves are doves hatched from nests in Juche Prefecture, on the slopes of the Imperial Mountain itself. These birds have plumage that is pure white in colour, and are much sought as ornamental birds in the aviaries of the Dynasty and Threshold royalty, thought to represent stability and the peace of an enlightened soul.

Predators

Doves are a major food source for many types of owls and raptors, as well as land-bound animals such as Crag Cats, Tree Pards, Hatra, and Marten, all of which eat both the birds and their eggs. Humans are also major hunters and consumers of dove meat.

Cultural Significance

The most common role of doves amongst the cultures of Creation is as a food source. Their powerful breast muscles make for excellent, fatty meat, which can be cooked after slaughter or preserved with Salt and is considered to be tender and rich in flavour. The fat itself can be kept as butter.

In areas where doves are plentiful, they may sometimes be slaughtered for other purposes. In Cherak, doves are sometimes killed en masse and fed to hogs in order to fatten them for slaughter. There and elsewhere in the North, dove feathers are used to stuff pillows and duvets, though the feathers do not have the lifespan of goose feathers.

Doves are also used for their powerful sense of directions, the birds able to return home to roost from up to a thousand miles distant. This makes them useful, with some training, as messenger birds travelling between set points or from mobile officials to a static command post. Many Threshold militaries and governments rely on trained pigeons to coordinate and communicate over long distances, and they have been known (with small vials or pouches strapped to their legs) to be used by thaumaturges to exchange reagents and results.

Amongst the nobles of the lands surrounding the White Sea in the North, doves are also used for racing, large bets placed on which bird will make a long journey the fastest.