Do you see what I saw?

Can you see it? Probably not. I don't know what made me notice it. It's right at the top of that bare branch to Annabelle's left.

Let's look closer.....

When I first saw it, I thought it was a young turkey up there ready to roost for the night. I'd seen them in those trees before, but not quite so high. I really couldn't see it very well from the ground, but after snapping some pics with the telephoto lens and then viewing them on the computer, I discovered it was a big fat mourning dove!

Huh.

Yesterday

'Nuff said. :-Þ

Poor birds

The birds have been having a hard time in this nasty weather we've had. I spied this robin hiding out in an evergreen tree Wednesday morning as the freezing rain was coming down. He/she is certainly puffed up in an effort to keep warm... and doesn't look too happy.

Late that afternoon I noticed that the robins were huddling pretty close to the south side of the house on whatever bare ground they could find.

When Courtney and I were out, we noticed these tracks on the cement right in front of the garage doors.

No doubt they belonged to a robin, too, because later I saw this poor thing scratching in the crevice between the cement and the garage.

It spread a lot of leaves out from that crevice. I wonder if it actually found anything to eat.

Yesterday morning, I noticed this mourning dove sitting in a tree, after all that snow had fallen.

Bet it was having second thoughts about the nest it had been building earlier.

Mourning. Indeed.

Late yesterday afternoon, Courtney's daddy came over with the payloader to push the snow off our driveway, etc. After he left there were a couple small areas that had the ground exposed. These spaces were filled with juncos!

Poor little birds. I hope the snow melts quickly so they can have an easier time finding food.

The good news is that even though we had flurries off and on all day long yesterday, it got up to 40°F, and considerable melting occurred. And even better news is that we didn't lose our power. But I know many others are still without electricity, including Courtney and Mommy and Daddy. I hope everything gets repaired soon! And that this is the last of 'winter', although the coming week's forecast doesn't show much warmup, and there are still chances of that dreaded 's' word. *sigh*

Good mourning.

Ya gotta love Minnesota. I can't remember why, but ya just gotta. "Land of Eternal Winter", was that it? Something like that.

Here's what I woke up to today:

(Those vertical lines are from taking the pic through a screen.) It's still coming down. Let's just hope it's all melted by noon, like yesterday.

Did you notice the bird in the tree? Look closer:

It's a mourning dove. With its head tucked under its wing. Probably mourning the lost spring.

Here's a mourning robin, too:

Later I came back to see if the mourning dove was still there. This is what I saw:

Sweet, huh? Mourning together.

Poor birds. They've all been working so hard to build their nests lately. I hope they hold off on laying their eggs awhile, though. It's too cold!

Okay, enough of that. I hope. Anyway, I promise more colorful pictures next time!!

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! ;-)

Back to the hackberry tree

Do you see what I see?

Look again.

How 'bout from the other side?

Another go?

Remember the contemplators from way back when we were thinking spring would never get here? Here they are again, atop our TV antenna.

"Well, our first kids turned out pretty good, despite the cold. You think we should try another nestful and see how it goes in this heat?"

I thought the angle at which they were perched this morning was kind of interesting. ;-) Okay, so it's just an optical illusion. The rods are actually parallel to the ground.

Mourning dove babies

Here they are at 10 days old. They've grown a lot since the last photo I took at just 3 days old. It won't be long and they'll be flying off.

Notice the kernel of corn on the edge of the nest in front of them? (Click on photo to enlarge.) I wonder if they can actually eat that.

Mourning dove nest

I mentioned in Saturday's post that mourning doves tend to make really flimsy nests. Here's a classic example, although the photos don't really do it justice. I discovered this nest yesterday morning as I happened to walk under it and the mother flew off. This morning I went back out with the camera and from quite a distance caught her still on the nest.

I'm sorry, Mama Dove, but your nest is a total mess. I'm amazed that it even hangs together enough to hold your eggs. But it must be sturdier than it looks, because we had some rain and strong winds on Saturday, and it still hangs there in the tree without even that much shelter from the leaves!

Amazing, isn't it?

I also checked on the other nest yesterday to see if those babies survived the weather. As you can see, they remain nice and cozy. And they're growing fast!

More babies

Last Monday, as I was mowing, I discovered another nest. This one's a mourning dove nest. On Monday, it looked like this:

This is one of the better-built mourning dove nests I've seen. They tend to make really flimsy nests.

Here's how it looked on Thursday (kinda hard to see, but there are 2 babies in there):

We had some wind and rain overnight that night, but I checked yesterday, and the babies had survived nicely.

Unfortunately, the wren abandoned her nest after I took the photo of it. I guess she didn't like my photo session. I feel bad about that. I don't know if the babies would've survived though, anyway. The nest was in what I thought was a kind of poor spot. It was right at the very top of the butterfly bush, with hardly any leaves covering it. I hope mama wren found a better spot and is happily setting on some new eggs. And I'll be a little more careful if I ever find a wren nest again (not saying I won't take pics, though!).

Contemplation

I saw this pair of mourning doves on my clothesline pole this morning. I think they're contemplating the weather. Notice how they're all puffed up to keep warm. Notice also the bare lilac bushes behind them.

"You think it's time to fill the nest yet? It's awfully cold."

"Depressing, isn't it? Last year at this time it was 90°."