Thursday, May 8, 2008

The doves have hatched ? ! ? !

[The Man I Love] was working at home yesterday. He called me at work with the news that the doves have hatched! We had to meet someone for dinner last night, and got home after dark. So this morning I leaped out of bed at quarter to six, I was so anxious to see!

Silly me, of course, it was still too dark then to really see under the leaves. But as the sky lightened, I could finally see - er, wait a minute. Who's that?

It's Papa Dove, watching over the nest, his taupe, striped wings looking just as neat and proper as a well-tailored suit. Beyond him, in the shadows of the leaves, I saw movement, fluttering - the babies? A feathered wing too large to be a dove-chick flapped up and I realized that Papa Dove was watching over Mama, who was turning around on the nest to get more comfy, just like turning over in bed.

Of course, you realize that this post was composed sentence by sentence - punctuated with me leaping up, tiptoeing to the window with the camera, and then back to the computer. Up for more coffee and a peek at the nest, then back to download the photos.

So here they are. Papa Dove has flown off to work, and here's Mama Dove and the kids.


Can you see them? I had to take the picture through the window. That's Mama, puffed up, the rounded top of her head, her eye obscured by a leaf. Just below her chest is one little chick, you can see his head and his beak pointing down. At Mama's side is the other chick.

Aren't they great? Just in time for Mother's Day!

3 comments:

Kathy Rogers said...

Yay! Baby birds!

Anonymous said...

I see the chicks! They must have hatched a few days ago; they look like cute baby birds and not limp little blobs just out of the egg.

JCK said...

So cool that this happened right before Mother's day. I hope you had a special day yesterday.

One year my mom had a mama bird make a nest in a wreath on my mom's front door. Even though my mom went in and out of the front door several times a day, the mama bird was not threatened. My mom has good energy that way. And the babies hatched and flew away about a week later, too!