HOME, SWEET HOME...

I reported two days ago that my friend the mourning dove had come back to our hill. When we replaced a window in my study a couple of weeks ago, I removed the hanging plant where she made her nest last year and the year before. She was obviously looking for the plant; so hoping she would agree to the change, I hung a basket in the place where the plant had been. Yesterday morning she was in the basket; and throughout the day, she and the male spent most of the day fetching material for the nest. (He is apparently a new guy. Mourning doves are monogamous, and unless something happens to one of them, they stay together, both participating in incubating and raising the chicks (called squab). When I didn’t see her mate after the first few days last years, I worried that he had been caught by one of the red-tailed hawks that circle our hill looking for prey.) Doves are notoriously sloppy nest builders. They bring a loose collection of twigs and feathers and string and plot it down willy-nilly without weaving any of it together. Apparently, they need nothing more than a few twigs to keep eggs from rolling away from the center.

Now they are settled in. I’m guessing the female will lay her eggs (usually two) in the next few days, and then they’ll spent the next month hatching them. Incubation is 27 days. I feel comforted by the presence of these doves outside my window. When I sit in front of my computer, she sits facing me. When I leave, she sometimes turns and sits the other way facing the walkway outside. When the male comes to the nest, he ignores me altogether. With a long lens I managed to get today’s photograph of the female sitting on the nest.