Mourning Dove

I'd planned to attempt a clarification on cones and conifers (after having somewhat botched the Red Cedar) but am enthusiastically dodging that endeavor this evening. A dear friend mentioned a fondness for bird photos and I did have this lovely creature in the wings. (Ya, I know...) :-)

A couple of weeks ago we took a peek at three roosting doves. It's not uncommon to have three to five doves hanging out in the crabapples--from sunrise to dusk. I thought they might be night roosting there but they tweak off around the house come dark. I say tweak because they make an unusual almost squeaking sound with their wings.

I think this dove is a lady. The gents have some blue on the crown and pink on the chest. Doesn't she look so very different from the gang in the tree--all so fluffed up? And once they're on the ground, they are quite perky.

Okay, I'm a romantic, and maybe that's why I like Mourning Doves so much. They construct their nest together. He collects; she builds. They take turns setting on their clutch of two eggs. Now, with all this loving devotion and attention, it'd be rather unclear how a nest can end up with a clutch of three or four, but sometimes a female lays in another's nest! This does tend to spin the romantic ideal, I suppose... But nothin's perfect, right?