A SPOTTED DOVE'S FAMILY

Mama dove hatching her egg.

Egg sitting precariously on the window's edge
Papa dove building the nest.

GismoMan "spotted" this Spotted Dove husband and wife team building a nest on our bathroom window ledge. He came waving and whispering to me early this morning - I thought he had seen our resident rat again. The Spotted Doves are the commonest of all open country pigeons here and have moved into villages, parks and gardens with the widespread clearance of forests. It builds a flimsy nest and that's what the couple were doing all morning. The mama was sitting on her egg while the papa kept bringing back twigs for the nest. They made this lovely sound "croo-croo-croo" as they worked. We took these few pictures and left them alone to carry out nature's duties. We don't quite know what to do as the egg is sitting so precariously on the ledge. If we moved the egg to a safer place, the doves may not find it again or they may not want it. We decided to leave the egg where it is and just watch the progress.

Both parents busily arranging twigs and making a nest around the egg.

Opps, please don't say anything about the really thick layer of dust on the glass. The rest of the house is not like that! The window opens outwards and it is almost impossible to clean from the inside without climbing onto the roof. OK, you could probably do an art masterpiece drawing on the dust but maybe it was the dust that attracted the doves to build a nest there. It looked so back to nature!!