I went over to my neighbor's house, and they have a torchière lamp on their front porch. At first I could only see some feathers sticking out from the rim, as though a bird had died in it, but when I got closer, I saw a mourning dove looking back at me.
The normal reaction of wild birds when people get too close is to fly away, and I figured that's what the dove would do. But as I approached the lamp, she just watched me, even when I moved between her and the wall on my way to the front door.
That's when I saw the bits of dried grass and twigs under her feathers. She's nesting, sitting on some eggs that she. Will. Not. Leave. No matter what.
Oh, she moves. Sometimes I see her turned to the right, and sometimes she's turned to the left, but I haven't seen her leave her nest since I discovered her a few days ago. I'll keep watch and see if I can tell how many little chicks she hatches.
In the meantime, she's gotta be getting hungry...
2 comments:
I started to comment on this post this morning and got sidetracked. IMAGINE THAT. anyway, that is cute...and I'll have to check the two similar lamps in my garage to make sure there aren't any cousins living there....
Bekah,
When I was a kid, in the days when people left their garage doors open all day, there was a sparrow who came into the garage every spring to build her nest. But she built it across the two copper pipes that fed the water heater, so it had no support under the center of the nest. Then she'd lay her eggs, and they'd fall through the bottom of the nest to the floor and break, and my mom would find them when she came to do the laundry.
The silly little bird never learned. And she never had any chicks. So at least the mourning dove has some eggs to sit on.
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