There was a dove sitting in a nest by our garage. At eye level! I watched her until she left the nest and I peeked in . An egg! Then another trip out of the nest. A second egg! Yippee!!!
I watched her for what seemed like weeks and eventually saw baby birds. She saw us peek in so much she didn't seem to get flustered. Every time I peeked in I would coo, "Hi, Birdy." I guess she figured out after a while that we were not a threat.
The birds grew and grew and I was getting hopeful that we would get to watch them fledge. I kept an ear out for dove cooing and peeked out frequently to see how the family was doing.
One afternoon I heard some odd sounds outside so I went to peek out. There was fluttering and shrieking. A blue jay was picking up and dropping the carcas of a baby dove on the driveway. One of the parent doves was attacking the blue jay until the blue jay left.
Obviously the one bird was just.....desicated. I couldn't go out and deal with it, so Mark did. We never saw the second baby dove out there so we assumed it had gotten carted away by the jay.
It was rainy out and the doves just kept hanging out on our steps in front of the next. So much cooing and pittiful pacing. I left them some seeds and they seemed appreciative.
This went on for a couple of days. We left out seeds. The dove couple kept pacing around on our steps.
At some point Mark went out and picked up the lid of the yard waste can which was propped up on a cinder block. Out ran a baby dove! It ran under our hosta plants and hung out there for a couple of days. The parents looked after it and eventually they all left. I am thinking it is a good thing.
2 comments:
I wondered about that dove when I saw your post on facebook. In the words of Paul Harvey, I now know "the rest of the story"! ��
Nature can be tough, can't it?? But glad there was a happy ending too. (We have a tiny bird nesting in a hanging basket on our porch. Trying to leave them alone, but the flowers really need watering!) :D
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