To the Birds!

If you look carefully out my living room window and sit very quietly you will see a wondrous event unfolding in front of your very eyes! Technically, the whole thing was completed from start to finish in just under two hours. I know this because I sat and watched, most of the time with my mouth gaping open and my camera ready to click unobtrusively.

Mr. and Mrs. Mourning Dove were becoming parents and readying the neighborhood with a home fit for the coming dovelet. {OK you tell me, what is a baby dove called? doveling? baby dove? young coo-er?)I have noticed for several days these birds flapping around, climbing in and out of the tree, but every time I peered into the tree I only saw branches and no sign of a nest.If you recall I am an avid birdwatcher, so I notice these things....Back to my story....

This particular morning as I was watching Good Morning America!with Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts, my best friends in the morning for coffee, I noticed 2 mourning doves doing alot of activity in my line of vision.

Here is how it played out: Mrs. M.D. (now I must assume they are married as they worked so well together and nary said a nasty word the entire time!)sat perched precariously on an upper level branchlet. Not the biggest branch in the tree but I did note it was well supported underneath. As she waited, Mr. Dove flew back and forth and brought her pieces of leaves and branches and bushes in his beak. He would fly out, fly back within a minute, and quickly transfer the building material, then zoom off again. As he left for more she tucked,turned and twisted in what appeared to be an aimless act of piling up the 'stuff'. Back and forth,back and forth, she never trading jobs or seeming to complain that he was pretty fast with his return route, he never lingering or cooing or dawdling, just back and forth. Often the little return item was so large he had to do an artful slippage into the tree, but he seemed to take it all in flight, maneuvering hither and yon and ending up with the transfer.


As I observed the work, especially during commercials from Robin and Diane, the nest seemed to be taking shape even as it didn't make any sense. how could 2 birds create a safe place to hatch their eggs with the wind blowing, my dear cat Apryl and the neighbor cat, both watching??I took a picture of the neighbor cat just in case I needed evidence in a court of birds.

This all happened at the beginning of the week, the day after Mother's Day if you can believe that timing!! So all of this week there has been a rather quiet Mrs. M.D. sitting on her well built nest, Mr. dropping in on very rare
occasions, but close by nonetheless since I see him flurrying about the yard and hear him cooing every morning. Maybe I should say he is mourning?

So, there must be a moral to this story, otherwise why spend so much time observing this pair of feathered friends? Believe me when I say that I have spent alot more time than just these few moments drawing parallels to marriage and life and the empty nest syndrome...


I wonder, for instance,if when the eggs are laid(or is that lain?)and the shells shoved onto the ground for some young human to discover and cart into science class, if the Mrs. will PUSH the young guy out to fly out of the nest or if she will gently encourage him to fly or if, perhaps, Mr. M.D. will fly along beside the young guy and show him HOW to fly alone? If there are more than one dovelets will they make her tired from repeating the same bird lessons over and over and over? Will she UNmake the same nest as she made should Mr. suggest they lay more eggs after a few weeks, or will she willingly add more branches knowing the storms have torn down some of its strength and ability to resist the weather and surely it will need
tending to?

I just went and checked on the young mumsie since it is a bit chilly here today with rain finally pouring steadily from the skies. I was going to try and snap another photo, but decided when one is waiting for children one does NOT appreciate the world seeing the lack of energy and action! Mr. is nowhere to be seen.
Should this young couple decide to feather their nest, so to speak, later in the summer, I will let you know if dad sticks around to show his babies HOW to fly or if he follows another birds cooings.

From my perspective, when the young birds have slowly and with scrapes and broken wings stabilized and flown, the fun will begin watching as the next year's batch of birds build their nests in my tree and out my window. I may not trim this tree outside my window for a long time, just to help out a bit. Because there may be a hard winter storm ahead and they may very well need the help of a friend.