"Uncommon among brushy and weedy vegetation in dry sandy soil. Usually in pairs or small groups ... Very small, with flicking wingbeats and low direct flight. Distinguished from Inca Dove by short tail and unpatterened plumage with dark spots on wing coverts." (David Allen Sibley. The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, p. 209)

"This species is locally uncommon to rare along the upper coast east to the Texas-Louisianna border." (Mark W. Lockwood & Brush Freeman's The TOS Handbook of Texas Birds, p. 89)

This shows the "scaled breast and nape."