Weblog 116
April 27, 2008~ 12:20am
This has been a week of birth and new beginnings!--birds and babies--nests becoming snugglier with brand new life.
My son and daughter-in-law welcomed their new child, a girl, after having 3 boys. Little 'Shiloh', meaning "His gift" or "blessing", and she truly is. (I think they were afraid to hope too hard for a girl this time- but here she is and oh! what a joy!) No pictures yet, but I know there is one extremely happy household up at West Point, N.Y., and three big brothers just busting their buttons about a baby sister. (Wow, that girl is gonna have protective angels guarding her, you can be sure.) But her mommy is active at outdoorsy things, and Lord knows those boys and their daddy is too, so my guess is her pink girlishness is gonna be full of dirt smudges and frog-in-pockets 'tomboy' as well.
On the very day that Shiloh was born, a mourning dove that has been roosting on the window ledge of my bedroom had her hatchling burst into the world. I love those cooing birds and their soft and sad-sounding calls. Here's a picture I managed to take through the window glass. Such a beauty! Tangerine soft beige with black shiny eyes, and such a calm about her!
You can barely see the baby, still wet from the egg, but I managed to zoom in a bit, and there!
See the black watermelon seed eye looking up at me and my camera? By the next day, this baby was sitting up in the nest, looking speckled as a duckling and manning her 'canoe type' slender home, waiting for mom or dad to come back with some food.
And here's a better shot. She's really studying me.....lol. Not scared though, really self-possessed and curious.
I know it takes only a few days for those tiny newborns to fly the coop and I shall miss her when she's gone. I greet her every day when I come home from work- I peek out though the drapes and tell her how pretty she is. The mother blinks at me, her Cleopatra eye-makeup ringing her dark Egyptian eyes and just as proud as can be.
Oh, and the one thing I left out last week was pictures of Bill's fifth birthday party. This year's theme was the K-9 unit, and the Baldwin police were very kind in sending out Office Bob Pagane with his wonderful dog, Angel. The kids were thrilled.
Angel is a Belgian Malanois, imported from Holland. She is well behaved, impeccably trained, and sweet enough to let children pet her, but still a policedog- and capable of taking down a bad guy if commanded to do so. Awesome, that kind of discipline.
The police theme carried over to the cake my daughter baked-
as well as the games played. This one- "Pin the Badge on the Policemen"- is being carefully supervised by little sister Kay. Bill manages to get the star right on the policeman's cheek. Close- but no cigar. LOL!
During all the ruckus with dog and policeman, kids and games, cake and flurries of activity, I caught Kay looking at bit 'at sea'. Sometimes it's just someone else's day, and at nearly 3, it's tough to not feel at bit on the sidelines-
but Kay actually did have a great day, despite. She's such a beauty. Oh, all of it-- all of it --this week was a bouquet of beautiful, beautiful things happening everywhere: trees with their blossoms, young parents and their offspring (birds with theirs).... it is gorgeous, triumphant spring, and full of riches. (I think I'll just say thank you. Maybe bow my head in thanks for a glorious April.)
April 27, 2008~ 8:45pm
When what to my wondering eyes should appear...Yep. Another baby dove! I couldn't believe it! Early this morning when I woke up and looked out to see how things were coming with the new family, what a view! The mother was feeding the larger and growing, speckled hatchling-- while the whole time, a teenier one-- fuzzy all over, little wings lifting and flapping in supplication, his skinny neck stretched up toward the beaks of mother and fledgling, and there he was, the smallest one yet! Two unopened bulbous eyes on either side of his head, and he was trembling in the morning chill. Ah......
This picture was snapped in early afternoon, and the baby looks so blurry I think, because it was still trembling head to foot. (I wished the older brother or sister would move closer to it and share some warmth-- it's so helpless)
From what I've read online, mourning doves have up to 5 birthings cycles per year that start in April and extend into September, and both mother and father bird share parenting duties by sitting on the eggs, sitting in the nests to warm their babies, and share in FEEDING them as well. They both produce a liquid called 'pigeon milk'(more rich in nutrients than either human 'mother's milk' or cow's milk!) that's stored in the parents' craws, then reguritated right into the open beaks of the baby birds. That kind of conscientious, shared parenting is truly amazing considering the time and devotion involved, and to think they go through this up to 5 times per year! (No wonder they're 'mourning'.)
Another reason there are so many birth cycles is that the mortality rate for fledgling doves is about 69 percent due to falls, predators and the weather, so I do hope these two make it. The stronger, larger one looks pretty much ready to leave the nest. (And I hope he shares that milk with the little guy.) If it's survival of the fittest without a parental decision to insure the little one gets fed, this poor fuzzhead is doomed.
What a wonder this has been, watching these little birds grow and cope. The good news is, when I got back from my mother's today, no parent birds were in sight, but the larger sibling was cuddled up to the wee one. Made me happy. No trembling at all.
April 29, 2008~ 4:45am
Sadly, the smaller one did not make it. When I looked into the nest after work today, the fledgling was sitting in the middle of the nest, no baby in sight. An hour later when I looked, the fledgling was huddled into the corner of the window well, and the baby lay lifeless where the bigger sibling had been sitting, perhaps all day.
I don't know whether the bigger bird was trying to warm it by sitting on it and in its inexperience, suffocated the baby, or the baby had drowned in the thunderstorm that came through Sunday night. Perhaps it was simply too small, with too much exposure to the elements before it could gain some body weight. I shed some tears. I've become attached to the family. The only time I've heard them since they've been nesting is when one of the parents came back finally, and I heard that characteristic mourning dove call. It's the sound of grief.....and loneliness, muted by soft despair. It hung there like a pall, that sound.
April 30, 2008~ 4:30pm
The fledgling flew the coop! When I got home today I walked through the living room, about to get the mail, I could hear the familiar soft coo-call of a dove. Sure enough when I opened my front door-- there on the ground, strolling about between my two large front bushes was Junior walking on the flagstones, caught mid-coo call-- and I'd know him anywhere. So I began to talk to him- "Look at you! Look who's out and about!" and with that, he FLEW about 15 feet to land on my neighbor's driveway- while the big rounded mother bird, who'd been keeping watch from my front lawn- flew up and across the street and into the woods. With that, junior lifted off. Beautifully too. I could see the white-edged tail feathers I've come to know so well from staring at him through the window and up close, and there he was- a real bird- and off on his own. I was grinning from ear to ear.
I checked the empty ledge from my bedroom window and yes, the poor little desiccated 'corpus' was still flattened there, turning back into the atoms it had come from, hardly recognizable now just two days later.
We leave things behind. We go on.
There is the whole sky....
birds do this too.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
This has been a week of birth and new beginnings!--birds and babies--nests becoming snugglier with brand new life.
My son and daughter-in-law welcomed their new child, a girl, after having 3 boys. Little 'Shiloh', meaning "His gift" or "blessing", and she truly is. (I think they were afraid to hope too hard for a girl this time- but here she is and oh! what a joy!) No pictures yet, but I know there is one extremely happy household up at West Point, N.Y., and three big brothers just busting their buttons about a baby sister. (Wow, that girl is gonna have protective angels guarding her, you can be sure.) But her mommy is active at outdoorsy things, and Lord knows those boys and their daddy is too, so my guess is her pink girlishness is gonna be full of dirt smudges and frog-in-pockets 'tomboy' as well.
On the very day that Shiloh was born, a mourning dove that has been roosting on the window ledge of my bedroom had her hatchling burst into the world. I love those cooing birds and their soft and sad-sounding calls. Here's a picture I managed to take through the window glass. Such a beauty! Tangerine soft beige with black shiny eyes, and such a calm about her!
You can barely see the baby, still wet from the egg, but I managed to zoom in a bit, and there!
See the black watermelon seed eye looking up at me and my camera? By the next day, this baby was sitting up in the nest, looking speckled as a duckling and manning her 'canoe type' slender home, waiting for mom or dad to come back with some food.
And here's a better shot. She's really studying me.....lol. Not scared though, really self-possessed and curious.
I know it takes only a few days for those tiny newborns to fly the coop and I shall miss her when she's gone. I greet her every day when I come home from work- I peek out though the drapes and tell her how pretty she is. The mother blinks at me, her Cleopatra eye-makeup ringing her dark Egyptian eyes and just as proud as can be.
Oh, and the one thing I left out last week was pictures of Bill's fifth birthday party. This year's theme was the K-9 unit, and the Baldwin police were very kind in sending out Office Bob Pagane with his wonderful dog, Angel. The kids were thrilled.
Angel is a Belgian Malanois, imported from Holland. She is well behaved, impeccably trained, and sweet enough to let children pet her, but still a policedog- and capable of taking down a bad guy if commanded to do so. Awesome, that kind of discipline.
The police theme carried over to the cake my daughter baked-
as well as the games played. This one- "Pin the Badge on the Policemen"- is being carefully supervised by little sister Kay. Bill manages to get the star right on the policeman's cheek. Close- but no cigar. LOL!
During all the ruckus with dog and policeman, kids and games, cake and flurries of activity, I caught Kay looking at bit 'at sea'. Sometimes it's just someone else's day, and at nearly 3, it's tough to not feel at bit on the sidelines-
but Kay actually did have a great day, despite. She's such a beauty. Oh, all of it-- all of it --this week was a bouquet of beautiful, beautiful things happening everywhere: trees with their blossoms, young parents and their offspring (birds with theirs).... it is gorgeous, triumphant spring, and full of riches. (I think I'll just say thank you. Maybe bow my head in thanks for a glorious April.)
April 27, 2008~ 8:45pm
When what to my wondering eyes should appear...Yep. Another baby dove! I couldn't believe it! Early this morning when I woke up and looked out to see how things were coming with the new family, what a view! The mother was feeding the larger and growing, speckled hatchling-- while the whole time, a teenier one-- fuzzy all over, little wings lifting and flapping in supplication, his skinny neck stretched up toward the beaks of mother and fledgling, and there he was, the smallest one yet! Two unopened bulbous eyes on either side of his head, and he was trembling in the morning chill. Ah......
This picture was snapped in early afternoon, and the baby looks so blurry I think, because it was still trembling head to foot. (I wished the older brother or sister would move closer to it and share some warmth-- it's so helpless)
From what I've read online, mourning doves have up to 5 birthings cycles per year that start in April and extend into September, and both mother and father bird share parenting duties by sitting on the eggs, sitting in the nests to warm their babies, and share in FEEDING them as well. They both produce a liquid called 'pigeon milk'(more rich in nutrients than either human 'mother's milk' or cow's milk!) that's stored in the parents' craws, then reguritated right into the open beaks of the baby birds. That kind of conscientious, shared parenting is truly amazing considering the time and devotion involved, and to think they go through this up to 5 times per year! (No wonder they're 'mourning'.)
Another reason there are so many birth cycles is that the mortality rate for fledgling doves is about 69 percent due to falls, predators and the weather, so I do hope these two make it. The stronger, larger one looks pretty much ready to leave the nest. (And I hope he shares that milk with the little guy.) If it's survival of the fittest without a parental decision to insure the little one gets fed, this poor fuzzhead is doomed.
What a wonder this has been, watching these little birds grow and cope. The good news is, when I got back from my mother's today, no parent birds were in sight, but the larger sibling was cuddled up to the wee one. Made me happy. No trembling at all.
April 29, 2008~ 4:45am
Sadly, the smaller one did not make it. When I looked into the nest after work today, the fledgling was sitting in the middle of the nest, no baby in sight. An hour later when I looked, the fledgling was huddled into the corner of the window well, and the baby lay lifeless where the bigger sibling had been sitting, perhaps all day.
I don't know whether the bigger bird was trying to warm it by sitting on it and in its inexperience, suffocated the baby, or the baby had drowned in the thunderstorm that came through Sunday night. Perhaps it was simply too small, with too much exposure to the elements before it could gain some body weight. I shed some tears. I've become attached to the family. The only time I've heard them since they've been nesting is when one of the parents came back finally, and I heard that characteristic mourning dove call. It's the sound of grief.....and loneliness, muted by soft despair. It hung there like a pall, that sound.
April 30, 2008~ 4:30pm
The fledgling flew the coop! When I got home today I walked through the living room, about to get the mail, I could hear the familiar soft coo-call of a dove. Sure enough when I opened my front door-- there on the ground, strolling about between my two large front bushes was Junior walking on the flagstones, caught mid-coo call-- and I'd know him anywhere. So I began to talk to him- "Look at you! Look who's out and about!" and with that, he FLEW about 15 feet to land on my neighbor's driveway- while the big rounded mother bird, who'd been keeping watch from my front lawn- flew up and across the street and into the woods. With that, junior lifted off. Beautifully too. I could see the white-edged tail feathers I've come to know so well from staring at him through the window and up close, and there he was- a real bird- and off on his own. I was grinning from ear to ear.
I checked the empty ledge from my bedroom window and yes, the poor little desiccated 'corpus' was still flattened there, turning back into the atoms it had come from, hardly recognizable now just two days later.
There is the whole sky....
birds do this too.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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