April 17, 2019 – There was quite a surprise out my kitchen window last week in the late afternoon on Wednesday the 17th. Standing on a branch in a tree where I have a number of bird feeders was an unusual visitor from the Southwestern United States, a White-winged dove. The white wing patches were clearly visible when I first sighted the bird and I immediately knew what it was. Even though they are occasionally seen in Illinois since the first record in 1998, they are listed by the Illinois Ornithology Society as a casual and they are posted on eBirds Illinois Rare Bird Alert when there is a sighting. The dove is more than likely a first record for Kankakee county. White-winged doves live year-round in the Baja California peninsula, southern Arizona, southern New Mexico and southwestern Texas. They are in most of Mexico down into Central America east from the Yucatan peninsula, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. By the time I retrieved my camera the dove had laid down on the limb and was facing away. I was never able to photograph the white on the wings.