A sweet story

The day before we left for Chicago, Jess called and said there was a baby bird on a step outside their back door. She said she thought it was a mourning dove... but wasn't it too early in the season for baby birds, much less baby birds already feathered out and off the nest? Anyway, she was worried about the baby there all by itself.

Later that night, she emailed me and said that the mother bird had come and was sitting on the baby for the night. Yay! I told her to take good care of that baby and not to scare it away, so we could see it when we got there the next afternoon.

It was still there when we got there. Here it is:

And zooming in a bit.... yep, definitely a mourning dove.

Jess had talked with a neighbor in the meantime, and the neighbor said that the birds had made a nest in a hanging pot on her landing. See the big pot below:

The nest was right on the top of the pot:

We got worried again the next day, as none of us had seen the mama bird all day. I guess we just hadn't look out at the right time, because later that day, both parents were there. Here's one of them on the ledge right outside Jess and Alex's back door. It certainly wasn't afraid of me, either, as I was only about 3 feet away from it with the camera!

Below is the other parent settled in with the baby for the night.

They all left, however, the following day. Hopefully the baby had grown enough to fly on its own. It still seems to me that it was awfully early for birds to have nested and have young that mature already! I've only just heard the first mourning dove here yesterday! But I thought it was so neat how faithful the parent birds were in caring for their baby, even on a step where people occasionally passed right by it.

Hmmm... I wonder who had to clean up what was left behind by those birdies! ;-)