Mourning Doves

by Kathy
(Brookville, OH)

Guess you could say I collect “Louie the Cat” items for the birds and my flower garden. One that I have is a plaque that hangs against our privacy fence, right behind our swing, with the face of a cat and a feather sticking out of his mouth. There’s a deep dish that sticks out from the plaque that will hold water or bird seed. One winter, Louie’s dish was damaged. I’m thinking the large crack in the dish may have been caused by frozen water. Needless to say, it does not hold water anymore, but is still of use to some…...

Our first day of a week’s vacation, I started noticing two doves checking Louie out. In fact, they kept coming back again and again, like a married couple checking out a house for sale, to be sure of what they’re getting. Next, they both started bringing twigs to the dish, building they’re messy nest inside it…. two very smart birds, if you ask me.


I got on the internet and started reading about Mourning Doves, and over the course of just a couple weeks, we witnessed the steps in raising two little doves who would soon fly away.

The changing of the guard was most fascinating. The mom having the longest shift, of course. I would see that she’d start getting a little agitated when dad was taking his good ole’ time coming back for his shift. Flip side of that was that he would seem even more frustrated shortly after his shift began as if to say, “where is she, I thought she was coming right back”….. The nest was never left unattended until the little doves were getting big enough to soon test their wings.

The most amazing thing to me was how calm and trusting the birds were. I could sit on the swing just a couple feet away from the nest and the dove (mom or dad) would just sit looking at me -- blinking. The true test of their trust was the evening a big storm was about to blow in with strong winds, thunder, lightening and hail. I didn’t want the little doves to be subjected to the severe weather so my husband and I went out and moved the swing back and over so that they were sheltered by the canopy. The mother bird sat perfectly still as if to say, “I know what you’re doing, and thank you!” The next morning we quickly realized the swing needed to be moved back out so that dad could take his shift. He was trying his best to figure out how he would fly underneath the canopy and into the nest. Once we moved it out, he flew right in.

From beginning to end, I always seemed to look out at all the right times. I was hoping to see the little doves take flight -- and surprisingly I did. After a feeding, I noticed the mother flew back out right away, giving them some space. The babies were getting a little too rambunctious. The one jumped up on the side of the dish and then fell off onto the ground. I thought, “Oh, No”…… And then I noticed that mom and dad were together watching from a nearby tree. Just like it was no big deal, the little bird took flight and landed right up in the tree with mom and dad. Then it was the other little guy’s turn. He thought about it and thought about it and to my surprise, he flew straight from the nest up into the same tree with the others. There they sat for the longest time – all four of them.

But then this was not the end at all! We had plans to strengthen the bottom in case they used it again. We weren’t quick enough because the very next day, the same nest had two eggs in it again!