White-winged doves may not be predictable, but they're almost always near a town or city. Until the mid-1980s, Texas white-winged doves were only found in quantity around the Rio Grande Valley.

• Semitropical white-winged doves are big-bodied, sandy-colored birds with squared-off tails and white bands bisecting each wing. • They have red legs and orange eyes encircled by bare, blue skin.

White-wing doves are waiting for breakfast in the tree branches that overhang the side garden, and they are not afraid to challenge pigeons for a share of seed.

Now white-winged doves are moving rapidly into places like the Panhandle and over the state line into Oklahoma. They already nest in states along the Gulf Coast and are pushing up the Atlantic Coast.

White-winged doves appear to have been pushed into the southeast by storms. They first showed up in Baldwin and Mobile counties in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina.

Readers frequently ask about white-winged doves crowding around backyard bird feeders. Tell me about it. The doves gather in a veritable convention at my house. They hold meetings at the birdbaths ...

White-winged doves are now commonplace in southwest Kansas. Whitewings have long been native over a broad swath of countryside that ranges from Central America up into Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.

Note: White-winged dove are game birds not available in supermarkets. Squab may be substituted—order well ahead from Central Market or Whole Foods. Or use quail, 2 per person.

The white-winged dove expansion has changed dove hunting in the state. Today Texas hunters take about 5 million mourning doves and 1.5 million whitewings in a good season, Oldenburger said.

White-winged doves, which are native to the southwestern U.S., are found in Colorado primarily along the Front Range. Both look like mourning doves, a native bird avidly sought by some hunters.

The dove, with a distinctive white band on its wings and ring of blue around its eyes, is drawing birders to Gardiner for a rare spring sighting. Sign in or Subscribe See Offers.