common_nature | Entries tagged with bird: mourning dove

I saw a nesting Mourning Dove today! It was in a tree by the river. Male and female Mourning Doves look alike, but females do 90% of the incubation, so this is probably the mom.

brownish gray bird sits on a nest of twigs

brownish gray bird sits on a nest of twigs

I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed her except that when I walked by she was fighting off a squirrel! I had never seen a squirrel go after a nesting bird before, but apparently they do eat eggs and even nestlings occasionally. Yikes. I was too surprised to get a video, but I did find a similar altercation posted on Youtube. After the squirrel gave up and left, the dove settled back down and I was able to get a decent picture. There was another dove perched nearby which I assume was the dad, but despite guides claiming that male doves defend the nest, during the squirrel incident he did absolutely nothing.

Doves and pigeons are notorious for building flimsy nests in strange and precarious places (so much that Reddit has r/StupidDoveNests devoted to them) so it's unsurprising that this one was basically a pile of twigs on a branch. At least it was well camouflaged, though.

( Would you have spotted the nesting dove in this scene? )

yourlibrarian

Early in December we were surprised by a flash of white out on the lake. At first we thought our Ghost Duck might be back, especially because it seemed smaller than the Canada Geese out there. ( Read more... )

yourlibrarian

In the early hours of the rain/ice/snowstorm we had a few weeks ago, two mourning doves continued courtship on our balcony railing. They were apparently undeterred by the weather or the frequent comings and goings of other birds fleeing the weather. ( Read more... )

yourlibrarian

Ever since we put the plants out and removed the food plate, we've occasionally had birds investigating the balcony. In the case of the mourning doves this usually means one wandering about pecking the floor at random.

One day we saw that it was not one but two so we thought we'd try to take some photos. To our surprise we caught a mating act. We've tried doing this multiple times when we've seen them mating on the railing but it was always tough to time it. So this time was just luck as we were already taking pics. ( Read more... )

yourlibrarian

Last autumn I took a photo of fallen and turned leaves and when the trees all bloomed this spring, I wanted to take another counterpart to them. Also, some more trees and birds in love. ( Read more... )

earthspirits

This lovely mother dove built a nest in a bottlebrush shrub below our deck. So as to not disturb mama and her little ones, I used a Zoom lens to photograph them.

Now that the babies are grown and have flown the nest, they and their parents still live nearby. The sound of their gentle cooing in the early morning and evening is soothing and very musical.

( click for more photos )

yourlibrarian

In all the time we've been here we've never spotted this bird before. We now have a regular Indigo Bunting visitor

( Read more... )

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Common Nature

wonder and joy and mystery in everyday things

Entries tagged with bird: mourning dove

Mourning Dove nesting

Birds Make Snow Angels Too

Photobombed Kisses

Mating Mourning Doves

It's Spring for Birds

Doves

Indigo Bunting, Cardinal, Mourning Dove

Profile

May 2025

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags