# Are mourning doves stupid?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 18, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248 "2013-03-18T13:00:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248/21 "2013-03-19T07:38:43Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Turkeys are stupid-smart. Also very wary of people and hard to get near. . .
I wish the turkeys around here were wary of people. They stroll down the middle of the street and block traffic. The toms are particularly bad - I have seen them peck at passing cars, and a tom turkey once blocked a neighbor of mine from getting out of her car. They sometimes chase bicyclists.
I’ve suggested to my neighbors that they could chase away unwanted turkeys by using a gravy boat, but so far no one has tried it.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2013, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248/22 "2013-03-19T07:44:58Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#):
>
> I wish the turkeys around here were wary of people. They stroll down the middle of the street and block traffic. The toms are particularly bad - I have seen them peck at passing cars, and a tom turkey once blocked a neighbor of mine from getting out of her car. They sometimes chase bicyclists.
>
> I’ve suggested to my neighbors that they could chase away unwanted turkeys by using a gravy boat, but so far no one has tried it.
Heh. Noticed your location. I was walking down the street, off Barrett. Two women, probably neighbors, were talking. Didn’t catch the conversation. Then I do a spit take as my periphery sees a very large turkey just sitting in the one woman’s yard, 10 feet away, not bothered by three people close by.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2013, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248/23 "2013-03-19T07:49:02Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> Daft things didn’t even try to build a nest; the female simply laid her eggs in a box of garbage bags which was sitting on a shelf.
Dude, prefab! Your box of garbage bags was the dove equivalent of a double-wide.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2013, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248/24 "2013-03-19T08:28:38Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#):
>
> Once a pigeon took some twigs, put them into my stove, and laid a single solitary egg.
>
> I was living on the Upper East Side in an old tenement building and I had gone away for the weekend. I wimped out and called animal control (city boy here) to remove pigeon.
>
> I felt bad for the bird. Can’t remember what I did with the egg.
>
> Why would it lay just one?
Birds typically lay multiple eggs over the course of several days, then start incubating them all together, so they hatch at the same time. Perhaps the bird was disturbed (or killed by a predator) before it could complete the clutch.
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### Author:  [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248/25 "2013-03-20T01:44:56Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> Beware the [walktopus](http://www.jeremyriad.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/musgrove-walktopus.jpg)!
+1
Where in the world did you find that?!
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248/26 "2013-03-20T02:43:02Z")
Maybe they are just depressed. 😛
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mourning-doves-stupid/653248/27 "2013-03-20T03:13:57Z")
> [@JBDivmstr](#):
>
> +1
> Where in the world did you find that?!
Just did a Google image search on “walktopus” (a lot of the images came back with variations on that picture, which looks like it might be a bronze statue which some guy made). I play D&D and other RPGs, and I’ve seen “land octopi”/ “walktopi” in various games over the years.
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