The Doves This Summer - May to early Sept '10

So, so long since I've written about the doves, and now.... how to put the whole summer in a nutshell? It was the end of April, in my last blog, and I was only seeing 4-8 doves in the mornings, and 4-5 in the afternoons. Yet, by 5th Sept 2010 there were 40 doves and pigeons on the roof! And I love the coloured ones as much as the white ones! The numbers have crept up and up On the 9th June I noted in my log that I saw 13 white doves, including Peace and Harmony. Peace is my dove that came down the chimney the day my mother died, and then I ringed her, and Harmony was a ringed dove (not by me) that was often with her, but didn't seem to be her mate. I haven't now seen him for a while.
By the middle of July, due to the new young doves (squabs) coming with their parents, the number was up to about 25, and by the middle of August, 31. Not all young ones of course, many are just nomad doves 'joining in', I guess.
My most wonderful surprise flew into my garden on the 19th June. Victory, my own dove, hatched in my dovecote in Spring '09 had come back! She - and I know she's a she now - hadn't been seen since August '09! I was sorry when she'd gone, but by going off she missed the mass cull in Oct. '09, thank heavens. Victory came back two days before my darling little Yorkshire Terrier died, giving me some comfort in my loss. She didn't seem to be around much in July, and I suspected she had gone off with Grey Joseph, as I'd seen him courting her, but she came back in August with him in tow! I'm not sure if they are mates, though. Grey Joseph formely courted Peace, but nothing seemed to come of it, and has also been seen with a white female.

Grey Joseph courting Victory (3 pics above)

Victory - she is 18 months old now
Grey Joseph with a white female

My special and distinctive pair, Chocolate Brownie (m) and Dalmation Dove (f) are here every day, and very tame. They know if they hang around, after the others have gone, I will start dishing out the peanuts! They've been busy this summer, having babies! Here's some of the courtship ritual in photos.Hen-pecked CB! - sorry this pic got elongated somehow!

And here's their babies, what sweet little birds, and what a mix of mum and dad! Here they are with Peace. Sadly, after this photo I never saw the second one again.
I call the remaining baby, Chocolate DD
and here he is with his father

No sooner was Chocolate DD raised than CB and DD were mating again, and one day another young one appeared with them. Dark grey speckled, instead of brown speckled this time!
In between Mother and Father on the roof
Soon after, the baby's twin appeared and I gave my husband the naming of the them - so now we have light head Inca and dark head Inca. These two look incredibly similar to the speckled pair in the my Nov. '09 blog.... I assume those two didn't last the winter or flew away as I haven't seen them since. They may have been raised too late in the year. I found a dove/pigeon egg in the water bath at the end of August. Sometimes the eggshell attaches to the underneath of one of the parents, and gets washed off in the bath! Pigeons can breed at any time of the year, if food is plentiful, but squabs hatched at the end of August won't be fledging til mid Oct and that's not the best start in life!

Another easily recognised bird in the very dark Noir. When I first saw him on the roof my heart skipped a beat and I thought it was my beloved Nero come back, but it wasn't. Still Noir has stuck around and is my darkest pigeon. From zero pigeons, I now have maybe up to 10 regulars.

Noir, with white dove, making himself heard!

To be cont.....

Nero's in Love

8th July '09

I am so proud of myself as I have added a random slideshow of my dove photos to my blog - anything techie usually takes me ages but I accomplished this in a few minutes. Hope you enjoy it!

Having done that I realised that it is over a month since I wrote my dove blog so thought I should do an update - as much for myself as for any readers.

My two babies, Victory and Purity, are now grown-up and approx. 4 months old. Surprisingly enough they are exactly the same age as my eldest daughter's pregnancy! They are a similar size to many of the other doves visiting, but I recognise them by their coloured rings. I think that Victory may be female, but I'm not sure yet. I was hoping that Victory would be male and Purity female - suits their names better, doesn't it? Anyway, they are well and visiting regularly at least twice a day for food.

I have seen my black dove, Nero with a dark female pigeon, both at the farm where the doves roost and here at home. He has been trying to fix his interest with her for ages - he is so beautiful how can she resist? He is much blacker than the photo - I can never get one that shows off his irresistable darkness with the iridescent purple and green neck feathers.

Here they are at home, on the roof and the lawn

And here they are in a very bad photo at the roosting farm which I will now call Pig Farm in my blogs as not wanting to identify it by name, and they used to keep pigs there.I read somewhere that pigeons tend to choose mates that look similar to themselves or their parents, and Nero and his love would seem to bear that theory out - as she is a very dark grey bird with a white patch on her back like he has - but the expensive and informative book I got for my birthday - Feral Pigeons by Richard F. Johnston and Marian Janiga - tends to disagree, and says that, according to their data 'more matings occur between birds of unlike plumage, and fewer between birds of like plumage, than would be expected on the basis of chance'.

This book informs me that as these birds are monogamous (which I knew) they choose their mate carefully (if they have enough choice) on the basis of age, breeding experience, dominance status, size, feather parasite load and plumage colour and pattern

Nero appeared to choose Messalina (that's what I'm calling her!) and she seemed to resist his advances strongly for a long period of time. It seemed like he was always after her - I'm surprised either of them got anything to eat as there was only ONE THING on his mind! Male pigeons walk, run or fly after the object of their affections, never giving them any peace, and pecking them on the neck to try to bring them under control!

Oh there you are! .......eating!........................................ Well here I am! See me!

Look how gorgeous I am!................................... Hey, don't walk away!..................

Eventually, some part of his charm worked and I caught this series of photos as the sun went down.

Messalina is on the left...................................................and now Nero is, puffing out his chest in courtship


Billing.......................................................................and then Messalina starts to crouch down

Nero mounts Messalina.........................................and they copulate (cloacal union)

This takes seconds so clever of me to capture it in a photo!

Messalina on the left, starting the henpecking that always follows marriage!!!

But they will stay together, and nest building - according to the book - starts about 5-7 days after the first copulation. So soon I will take another trip down to Pig Farm to see if they have started a nest. There are currently about 4 or 5 white dove nests there, with squabs being raised.

Back to the other doves -

A flock of just under 50 ( white doves and pigeons) are currently visiting - last year at this time it was approx. 40.

I had a surprise recently - Victory (pink ring and green ring) was on the front lawn when I went through the garden on my way to the island to feed the doves. I walked through the honeysuckle arch and there in the lavenders was Victory again. 'You cheeky thing!' I said 'How did you pass me?' and then I realised that this dove, also with pink and green rings, was not Victory at all but a bigger, older dove, with the rings on the opposite legs. I checked my records and discovered that it must be Autumn. Autumn was a dove that I caught and ringed last October and haven't seen since before Christmas! Wonder where he/she has been all this time, and why he went away? Remember those deep snow days? Somehow he found food then because he definitely wasn't visiting my garden for it.

The End. (you may have to scroll down for the comments section - I still can't work out how NOT to have a huge gap!)