Doves In Hanging Flowers
by Christine
(West Allis, WI, USA)
Bird in flowers, eggs in nest
My husband just finished redoing our porch in wood. To Celebrate, he bought me some nice colorful hanging flowers to decorate it. On memorial day this year, we hung them up on one side of the porch, but they were in the way because that was where we sit outside. So we hung them on the other side of the porch.
After about a week, I noticed that birds mourning doves were flying in and out of my flowers flattening them. At first i was a little upset, but they aren't perennials and were going to die after this summer anyway so I decided to let the birds have their fun.
I should explain that I have a 22lb. cat that is my baby and loves to go outside late at night and early morning. One night we were outside on the porch and he was definitely on the hunt for anything in his path.
First he caught a June bug which I immediately made him spit out, then he went to the other side of the porch. I thought nothing of it until I heard a rustling sound and the loud flapping and chirping.
I didn't get to see what exactly happened, but I do know that my cat scared a bird off the porch, maybe attacked it, and it flew into a nearby tree chirping loudly and rustling in the tree branches.
This scared me because I thought that my cat had injured this bird. That is the background of the story.
About two days after the incident with my cat, I was on the porch with my husband and my 1 1/2 year old son when we saw a mourning dove just sitting in tone of the hanging flower plant. My husband tried to shoo it away, but it would not budge.
We thought that maybe it was about to lay eggs, so my husband wanted to take a picture of it. He was successful, but 2 seconds after he snapped the pic, the dove flew away.
So I did not think it had nested. I looked in the flowers, and sure as shoot, there were 2 perfectly round white eggs. We felt so bad for disturbing this poor dove that we immediately took a pic and left it alone and forbid the cat from going outside.
The dove came back that night so I felt a lot better that it didn't abandon the eggs because of our negligence. But I have never seen the male and female switch places, and I am very worried that my cat may have killed one of them.
I looked around the tree it flew into that one night, but never found a body, so I am hoping that they are still both alive and watching the nest because I know that it is near impossible for the one bird to do it alone.
But every day I am on the porch talking to my dove and keeping a watchful eye on it. Hoping that I get to see two little baby doves soon with a happy mommy and daddy.
I am attaching the two photos we took that actually turned out fabulous considering they were taken with a camera phone. I hope to keep you updated when the eggs hatch.
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