Friday, June 20, 2014

Amazing dove parenting

This morning, standing at the kitchen window at dawn, I saw a cluster of four white-winged doves on the wall. At first I thought it was two adults feeding two chicks, but then realized it was one extremely patient adult feeding THREE very demanding chicks. I finally sorted it out, and believe it was mama or papa, two recently-fledged chicks, and one nearly full-grown chick from the previous clutch. I’ve always known white-wingeds were good parents, but had no idea they would continue to feed a fledgling until it was nearly full grown!

I do not have pictures of the incident, but here are nestling doves in the carport from a previous year.

White-winged siblings 5-16-2012 3-12-04 PM 1929x1331

These homely little guys will grow up to look like this beauty:

White-winged dove CU 6-27-2011 8-31-41 AM 1901x2105

6 comments:

  1. More evidence that not all babies are cute. Look at the schnozzes on those things!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The baby quails are so cute they make up for all the ugly baby doves.

      Delete
  2. Wow! Young doves are pencil-neck geeks!

    ReplyDelete