THE QUIET ONE - The mourning dove is understated yet offers subtle beauty and a soothing call

The big city is heaven for pigeons. On a bright, autumn day they greedily wolf down hand-outs in Bryant Park in Manhattan.

Behind the New York Public Library, lots of street vendors dispense all kinds of food that residents and tourists drop -- accidentally or intentionally -- to feed the birds.

Now found on every continent except Antarctica, the rock pigeon originated in Europe in places like the canyons of Spain, France and Italy. A domesticated version of the rock pigeon was brought to America by colonists in the 1600s, went native and is now represented across the continent by feral pigeons.

The feral pigeon is quite different from the wild birds that still live in Europe and elsewhere. The wild birds are trimmer, uniform in color and pattern, and much more wary of humans, while the feral birds are plump, highly variable in coloration and will scarcely get out from underfoot on a sidewalk.

But the concrete and steel canyons of Manhattan resemble the ancestral home of pigeons in many ways. Food is abundant, if a little fattening, the climate is similar, and roosts and nesting places high on skyscraper ledges are as safe from predators as canyon cliffs.

Canyons, man-made or natural, are scarce here, but the feral pigeon is such an adaptable bird that it has found food and shelter. And while this bird is not native to North America, several other pigeons and doves are.

The passenger pigeon was probably the most abundant bird on the continent until it was systematically wiped out in the 19th century. Several species occupy western states, and the sparrow-sized, common ground dove may be seen along our coast, but only rarely. For all practical purposes, this leaves the mourning dove as the only native species found in North Carolina.

The feral pigeon is loved by a few, but reviled by many for its habit of defiling public spaces with its droppings. But the mourning dove is simply ignored by most. Its colors are muted, its voice subdued and its behavior generally lacking in drama.

While it doesn't have the offensive habits of the feral pigeon, neither does it have the brilliant plumage of the wood duck, the lovely song of the veery, nor the thrilling hunting behavior of the Cooper's hawk. It is, simply, underappreciated.

But this familiar bird of field and garden has several characteristics worthy of higher regard. The name comes from the dove's mournful call. The word coo, directly linked to doves and pigeons, is derived from the sounds they make, and, indeed, the mourning dove's call, while often thought melancholy, may also be described as a soothing coo.

Its plumage, rather than spectacular, has a more subtle beauty -- softer and more graceful than many birds. The delicacy of this bird may in part be due to a unique type of feather called powder-down. Unlike other feathers that are regularly molted, powder-down feathers are never molted. They grow continuously. As they grow, the tips of these downy feathers break off tiny, talc-like fragments which to some extent coat and help protect other feathers and perhaps contribute to its softer appearance.

A most interesting feature of pigeon and dove biology is the way they feed their babies. The process of incubating and hatching eggs causes changes in the birds' hormones which then cause physical changes in its crop, a sac-like portion of the digestive system just below the esophagus.

Present in many species, the crop is mainly a storage compartment for food until there is room for it to move on through for digestion. But as the time for feeding nestlings approaches, the cells lining the crops of pigeons and doves begin to produce a milky substance high in fat and protein.

The cells begin to slough off as well and the combination of the cells and their secretions are regurgitated into the bill of the nestling.

While flamingoes and penguins share a similar process of feeding their young, crop-milk is unique to pigeons and doves. As the nestlings grow, the parents incorporate more and more of their own diet in with the crop-milk, until, upon leaving the nest, fledglings are getting only the diet of the adults and are ready to learn to forage on their own.

Easily attracted to bird feeders, the mourning dove prefers platform feeders where it will eat a variety of seeds, including sunflower, safflower, millet seeds, peanuts and cracked corn.

■ The Audubon Society of Forsyth County will hold a bird walk at 9 a.m. next Saturday at Civitan Park near the Winston-Salem State University campus. From Business I-40, take Martin Luther King Drive south to Reynolds Park Road; turn right and park at the far end of the parking lot. Non-members are welcome.

Bird's-Eye View is a joint column by Ron Morris and Phil Dickinson. Today's column was written by Morris. Morris retired after 24 years as curator at the N.C. Zoo. He has studied birds around the world and is currently the vice president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County. Dickinson is a legal writer. He has been an active birder for 15 years, and is a past president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County and chairs the conservation committee. If you have a birding question or story idea, write to Bird's-Eye View in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, N.C. 27101-3159, or send an e-mail to birding@wsjournal.com Please type "birds" in the subject line.