Nesting…

I’ve started the move into my back yard for the season.

There is a lot to do this year. I need to clean up the leaves I never got to last fall before the first snow. I need to weed, plant, mow. But the back fence fell over in a wind storm and in two weeks we’ll be bonding with our neighbors as we replace it. So for now, I have the perfect excuse to put everything off for a few more weeks and just sit here and write.

This morning I watched a mourning dove build her nest. His nest? I’m not up to date on how to tell the difference in sexes in birds. And until it’s needed in a book, I won’t be looking it up any time soon.

(For the sake of argument, we’ll just use the term ‘It’ when referring to this particular mourning dove.)

The mourning dove continues to fly to the ground and pick through dead pieces of grass and bendable branches. It picks through several with its beak until it finds one it likes and then takes flight back up into the tree.

The tree sits next to my patio and I have quite a close and personal view of this whole process, only I was going to trim this tree. Really chop the sucker, almost in half. But now it looks like nature has taken care of my need to do more yard work. This project will have to keep until the mourning dove family moves out.

I’m reminded of one of the Prairie Home Companion shows from my childhood. (We used to listen to about fifteen or twenty minutes of the show every Sunday night when I was a kid, as we drove home after 5pm mass.)

The show I recall: Garrison Keillor was talking about how spring had come to the fictional town of Lake Wobegone. He had been watching birds in his own back yard, and pondering the frantic way a robin was building a nest. And as a father to be, said robin appeared anxious. Would he get the nest built in time? Would it last if there was a wind storm or rain? Would there be enough cover from predators?

[Damnit!]

Okay I looked it up.

Apparently the female mourning dove is the one who builds the nest. It seems she will be often interrupted by the male. Which also happened this morning, he came by for a “quick” interruption. She dealt with him and after a lot of flapping of her wings, made him realize she had work to do. He shrugged and flew off so she could get back to work.

Here’s some random trivia we both didn’t know we were going to find out today. There is a very slight difference when trying to figure out the sex of a mourning dove. It would require more time and maybe binoculars. Mourning doves are one of the quickest birds when it comes to building nests, they can accomplish it in a matter of hours. They also have babies about six times a year, all in different nests. Turns out there will be about 2 eggs per brood. The baby will grow quickly and in about fourteen days be ready to learn how to fly. So, I guess I’ll keep an eye on the nature out here. Since I want to trim this tree, it’s good to know that after the little family moves on, they will be going to build another nest elsewhere. And I won’t feel bad for destroying a temporary home.

Note: Do you know how much Italian language I could fit in my head if I didn’t have to move in this bit of information? But we do that, don’t we? Hang on to the little, strange bits and pieces of information. I was recently with a friend and we put on Lisa Lobe’s song “Stay” (because of some strange comment about how I’m learning guitar and I just need a moody coffee shop and low lighting and I could attempt my best Lisa Lobe impersonation…) Anyway, almost 30 years later and said friend and I still know EVERY single word! And yet I struggle to remember the different Italian verbs for rain and cry. Because the one time I learned those two words, it rained most of the time I was in Italy and my kid cried a lot. The two words became entwined.

Oh my friend, I digress.

I wouldn’t say I’m very interested in birds. I don’t want to start a collection of bird art. You know how when you mention to someone that you kinda like something and the next thing you know, your whole life is Moose figurines? Of course, Moose are the one exception because I truly do love moose. But I’m not interested in collecting birds anytime soon. Unless it’s a cute little side note of a knick-knack. Another friend and I seek out gifts that “have a bird on it”. All because we laughed hysterically when we saw this sketch from Portlandia.