For the first time this year we have a couple of nests on the front porch. There’s the mockingbird nest that seems to infuriate the red tail hawks, and the mourning dove nest up under the rafters. While the three mockingbird eggs hatched and the fledgelings were out of the nest and gone in a month, the mourning dove youngins seem perfectly happy to hang around.
Often there’s just the one.
But at the end of last week we started seeing a second one. One of these guys hit the front window late one night and then made quite the fuss sitting on the window sill. I warned him about the cats and raccoons that wander by the porch some nights, but it seemed unconcerned and was back up in the nest in the morning. Not my monkeys, not my circus!
The plan was to call these two Ben & Jerry. But then…
So… Manny, Mo, and Jack? Larry, Curly, and Shemp?
Close up there are enough differences in their markings to tell them apart. I do wonder if the one with the blue circle around their eye is the opposite sex from the two that don’t. I’m not enough of an expert on mourning doves to know, and I’m way too stinkin’ busy right now to take the time to research it.
What’s really funny is that when I go out the front door, the three of them all freeze. They’re moving enough to see that they’re alive, but it really does seem to be an instinctual response. HUMAN! FREEZE! (Why is he talking to us? Are we supposed to understand or answer?) However, if I peek through the open drapes in the front window when they can’t see in, they’re shuffling about, grooming, fighting, and so on.
I’m going to try to not take it personally.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 