Monday, March 14, 2011

Bird Brain



I have three hanging baskets of plants that decorate the front of my house. This weekend, I realized some stupid mourning dove has decided to use the basket outside my office door as a nest. She flew when I walked past the basket, so I stuck my phone up and took a picture to see if she'd laid her eggs yet. She had.



Last year, some stupid dove (it could even have been the same one) laid her eggs in the hanging basket right outside the front door. I couldn't water the basket because I worried it might hurt the eggs (and would scare her away), so the plants in the basket slowly died. Then the basket dried out so badly it started blowing in the wind, so we tied a line to a weight underneath to hold it steady. Then the plants withered to the point that the afternoon sun was nasty hot, so Steve rigged up a shade for her.

Both eggs hatched and, under our watchful eye, very quickly grew huge. The mama sat on that nest forever, but once the babies hatched (or at least, once we became aware of the fact that they'd hatched) they flew in about a week.



So here we go again. And I don't even particularly like mourning doves.

10 comments:

Beth said...

It might not hurt the eggs if you were to water the plants ... they do have hard shells, after all.

If they are going to come back each year, it could be useful to know if you could keep the plants going too.

cs harris said...

Beth, my main concern is that she flies out every time I try to water them and I worry that she might abandon them. We had a dove a few years ago that did give up and left her egg.

Steve Malley said...

Awwwww.... :)

Charles Gramlich said...

I like eating doves. They make good food! We have a bunch of these in our back yard. We do feed 'em but stop short of 'shading' them!

cs harris said...

Steve, hope things are looking up for you.

Charles, when hit Le Google to make sure they actually were morning doves, the first article that came up was about hunting them. I remembered your attitude toward squirrels and thought, I know EXACTLY what Charles is going to say!

Diane said...

I love the doves. We always feel honored when one appears in our yard. And I would never, never be able to eat one.

I hope this dilemma can be solved for the good of all. They might be stupid, but they have the most wonderful song of all.

Diane

cs harris said...

Diane, personally I prefer the sparrows, blue jays, and cardinals, but I also have lots and lots of doves. A recent wind blew down some boards on our back fence, and when I went to get some replacements from the stack behind the garage, I found another dove nesting on the top of the stack! Steve runs through a garbage can full of bird seed a week, feeding them, so house is constantly surrounded in birdsong. I love it.

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