Sad news....

Sat 21st Jan.12 - Very bad news I’m afraid, but later on in the blog. I will continue where the last blog left off.... The photo above is Jose, my dove that can't fly.

Eric, the white dove in the hospital, has died – about 14 days after we first picked him up. He was in a very poor way at the end, as you can see from the photo below, twisting his neck in the manner typical of this horrible illness, and sometimes unable to raise his head.


I was bringing him into the house at night, as it was so cold and frosty, and during the day he was shut in the hutch part of the hospital with a covered hot water bottle. Every couple of hours I went out to offer him a drink, and one time he took a long gulp, and I wondered if he might be on the mend, but a short while later he was dead. Maybe it was for the best.

Since the cote came down, and was re-erected Shanti and Shelby have not returned to it at night. I suspect they roost on the old building nearby instead as they are always two of the first in the garden in the mornings. After a few days Shelby did fly to the top of the cote, but neither of them have been in any of the nestboxes.
11th Jan. ’12 - I had emailed Kootensaw Dovecotes as their website says that the cotes ‘last a lifetime’ and that the wood is treated. My post wood was rotten. I was very upset and annoyed about the whole thing, and my email probably reflected that. A very pleasant lady rang me up nearly a week after the cote came down, and apologised for the delay, saying they had been away. She said that she and her husband were upset by my email, and agreed that the wood looked rotten (I had sent photos). She said that the only thing they could think of was that the place where they get the posts from apparently, in 2006, had to change the way they treated the wood due to EU ruling (before it was later changed again) and she felt some of the wood may have suffered because of the change. She sounded sincere and concerned. As Shanti and Shelby (the doves in the cote at the time) hadn’t returned to the cote she offered to send me a pair of doves. I thanked her sincerely but declined as it would mean I would have to put up the homing net again and that would upset Flash. I also told her that I have a large feral flock here, and some use the cote sometimes. I was pleased she had phoned, taken the thing seriously, and am happy to leave it at that.

That morning when I went out to release Jose and check Eric, there were TWO doves in the cote (in Flash’s old nestbox and not the section Shanti and Shelby had been using) – whether they got here early this morning or spent the night here, I don’t know. I didn’t notice them last night. The first one out was Vim – one of Flash and Omo’s babies born in the summer, and then I had a long wait before the other emerged – and it was Flash! So maybe a bit of an incesty thing might have started there!
13th Jan Flash has spent night here for the last couple of nights, and this morning he is collecting sticks with a female – NOT Vim – and probably Omo. She has very pink feet like Omo anyway and if she stays she will be called Omo- even if she is actually Omo2! Another pair of doves are also collecting sticks for the opposite side of the cote. Now the cote is up slightly differently, it has two ‘eyes’ and a ‘mouth’ and both pairs are in the eyes. Whether Flash will tolerate the other pair remains to be seen. They are not Shanti and Shelby, the unlucky pair in the cote when it came down.
Jose too has a new lover – a pigeon! Flash also courts her, and so does Shelby. The pigeon doesn’t yet know that there is no hope of her flying away with him! She also has a female friend, Lesa – a white dove I ringed with a yellow ring, named after one of my blog readers! Lesa spends quite a lot of time just sitting with Jose or stealing her food so it was easy to catch and ring her. I'll try to capture a photo of her for the next blog.

Flash looking for sticks

Flash with leafy stick

The 13th of January was a good day for Flash, despite being Friday the 13th. It was a frosty bright day and he collected sticks and took some to the cote. I also saw him mate with both Omo and Jose, and he generally enjoyed himself. Happy with the newly erected cote, his females and himself. The next day he was dead.

My lovely daddy dove who recovered so well from paramyxovirus was caught and killed by the sparrowhawk on Sat 14th Jan. ’12. Saturdays are quiet around here, we live in a rural spot by the river, and although there are neighbours and an old building converted to offices nearby, no-one much is around at the weekends - a perfect opportunity for the sparrowhawk. I had gone out, and as soon as I came through my little garden gate and saw the white feathers surrounding the gory body, I knew it was Flash, even before I saw his blue ring. I was quite numb as I gathered him up. Don’t worry, there are no gory photos – he deserves more dignity than that.

Flash's feathers



I arranged his damaged body on a little wicker tray that I use as a bier for special doves, and covered him up to the neck.

Then I brought him the only flowers that the garden offered, yellow winter flowering jasmine (I think it is) a frosted white rose, and one little yellow crocus

I couldn’t bear to dispose of his body then, and kept him for 24 hours before he had the river funeral that all the dead doves have. I spotted a little frosted pink rose bud in the garden, and added it to his flowers. It followed his body down the river. Rest in peace, my bright and beautiful bird. I will remember you always.




I have kept a few of his feathers, including the tail feather with the black flash – which was why I named him so. I will miss him terribly but he died as he lived, a vibrant part of nature. I’m not sorry I had nursed him through his illness – after his release, he had 20 days of glorious freedom.

Below is one of the last photos I took of him - I'll remember him that way

Since Flash and Eric have died, the garden is a little quieter. No doves have been near the cote, except the day after Flash died, Omo went into the nestbox. I hope she finds another mate soon, but I don’t really recognise her as she is pure white. Today, a week since Flash died, a white dove sat on the ledge of his nest box for a while. Maybe Omo again, I don’t know. The too long stick he brought is still sticking out of it, and I haven’t had the heart to remove it. I hope next blog is more cheerful. The dovecote is 'to let' once more.....

To be cont...

Very UN-happy Mother's Day

Wednesday 25th March 2009 Last photo of Glory. I was taking a picture of him to show you the pink colouring on his tail, which was my only way of marking him.

Warning: Sad blog and a couple of sad photos.

On Mother's Day last Sunday, I fed the doves on the island as usual at about 7.30 am. Glory, my daddy dove, was there amongst them all, and I threw him extra, as I do all the special doves that I recognise. Then, as it was Sunday I went back to bed for a bit. How I wish I hadn't. I got up again about 9.00 am and opened the kitchen door. My first thought was that there were petals all over the step, but after that one split second I realised that they were lots of little white feathers and the trail took my eyes to the left and there was a bloodied dead dove lying in a flurry of feathers in front of the coal bunker. I rushed down to the dovecote and was relieved to see a dove inside, but rushing back I was thinking 'Please, please don't let it be Glory!' but of course, it was. His little body was still warm. If only I'd been in the kitchen I might have averted the attack ... because of course it was a hawk that got him. A dove looks very beautiful, even in death, even if it has been violated like poor Glory - the closed eye, the turned up claws, the tragic limpness. I knew it was definitely Glory as I had marked his tail with pink food colouring (see previous blog). I was just so devastated that I was numb, I think. The horrible hawk had only eaten a small part of him - only a mouthful or so..... what a terrible waste. And the mess.... birds have an unbelievable amount of feathers. And poor Hope, how was she going to manage.....

The first egg had hatched out on the previous Thursday. I had been out in the garden, going to and fro from my 'second' kitchen which is a sort of outhouse and has my washing machine in it, and one trip, there was the egg shell, bang in the middle of the path, where it hadn't been a moment before! It was like a birth announcement - We have a baby! I was so happy. It made my day! I carefully picked the shell up and put it on my kitchen window sill. The next day, when Hope came out of the nest box she had an eggshell attached to her underneath, which quickly dropped off and I collected that too and put it with the other one.

So the poor little new baby squabs lost their daddy when they were only 2/3 days old and I was seriously worried that Hope would abandon them.

I didn't know whether I should show her Glory's body - doves do seem to mourn their dead -and I thought she might go off looking for him if she didn't know he was dead. So, in the end decided to put him on the hedge. She came out of the nestbox, but if she saw him she gave no sign and flew to the house roof, relieved herself, then flew down to the lawn, had some food, a quick drink and then back to the nest box - again ignoring, or not seeing, the body on the hedge.


I then removed him and gave him a little funeral, like I do to all my dead doves. Call me eccentric if you like, but I put pretty spring flowers on his body, hiding the worst of his wounds, and carried him over to the island on a flat woven basket. I did shed tears then - it all seemed so unnecessary - out of 40 odd doves, why poor Glory? I stroked his snow white feathers, humming 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' like I always do. Then I put him in the fast moving river to be swept away forever. R.I.P. Glory, my beautiful daddy dove.

I was going away that afternoon for the night, but there was nothing more I could do anyway, except make sure my husband kept an eye out for Hope. What will be, will be, I kept saying to myself as I drove down to West Sussex to visit my mother. Later that evening my husband rang to say that while he oiled the wood table and chairs in the garden, the hawk had made two more attempts on the doves - maybe I'd disturbed it with Glory and that's why not much of him had been eaten. Maybe it was still hungry and that's why it tried again. Both times my husband yelled and threw something at it, and both times the doves got away. It is worrying that the hawk is bold enough to swoop down on the doves even when someone is in the garden - I am a bit concerned about my little dog too! He's only the size of a large rabbit.

I didn't know if one parent dove could rear the squabs on it's own and emailed two dove blokes that I know - one, Bob Friar http://www.everlastingdoves.co.uk/ (see previous blogs) and two, a man called Dave Frost who sells, or did sell, info about doves from ebay, and kindly gives his email address for advice. Both of them were good enough to email back, and I was relieved to hear that one parent dove will rear the squabs alone, and is often successful in doing so.

Bob also told me that Belle - the dove I took back to him (see previous blogs) - has now hatched a new batch of eggs herself and has babies that are approx a week old. I was happy to hear that news.

Currently, all seems well, and Hope is coping, but I am trying not to have any expectations of what will happen next. The only thing I can do for her is to make sure food is readily available.

At my sister's - my elderly mother lives with her - we were walking round her garden and I found a white egg on the grass underneath her big holly tree. I picked it up and it was cold but heavy and only slightly cracked on the top. She was horrified that I decided to open it up, but I am interested in birds and have never had the opportunity before. I cracked the shell away carefully - the poor little minute baby bird inside was seemingly perfect but dead of course. I think it was a wood pigeon - she has lots in the garden, and it had the same shape of beak as the baby doves have. I pondered on why this egg had been turfed out of the nest - poor little thing, it didn't even get a chance at life. It must be better to have some time alive, as a bird, to be free.... even if you do end up in the vicious claws of a predator.

You know the signs that you see on old doors sometimes - No Hawkers? Well, I wish I could get one for my garden - NO HAWKS!

Hope, today, stretching her wings in the dovecote.

The end

(you might have to scroll down a bit for the comments section)

How I'm Dealing with the Problem AND Doves in the house!

Photo of my yorkshire terrier - well he does get a mention further down the blog!


First of all, I will just apologise to Lee, who commented on a recent blog. I said Lee was a lady because I didn't know - but we've been emailing and Lee is a man. So, sorry Lee, and let me know when your doves arrive. Lee and his family are getting a new dovecote and four white doves - very exciting!



I telephoned a man called Dave who keeps racing pigeons and has been dealing with pigeons and doves for 50 years. I bought Dave's booklet on Ebay (doesnt seem to be available at the moment or I would have provided a link) and the small price I paid gives me access to his phone number to discuss any problems or queries. I'd actually forgotten about this, but then remembered and thought he might be able to help. Dave was a lovely kind chap and we had a super conversation, but none of his ideas I felt were going to be very practical for me.






He suggested:

1. Trapping the doves I don't want and taking them for a drive 30 miles or so away, and then releasing them.

I feel that this would be difficult to do - how do you trap them? I would have to get big traps and entice them in with food, and I certainly don't want to pay for traps. Then it would be unfair to the doves to take them away from the landscape they know and where they roost. Also I might well split up paired doves and I wouldnt want to do that.

2. Putting an advert somewhere (he didn't suggest where) saying that white doves were available if someone wants to come and trap them.

Apparently white doves are scarce and people are always looking to buy them!!!! (Amazing!). This idea is no good for same reasons as above, and the fact that I don't want people tramping in and trying to trap doves on my island!

3. Shooting them.

We both agreed that we thought this was wrong.

4. Cutting down the food while it is still Autumn and natural food is still probably available.

Well, this seems to be my only option, and I have started to do it. Today 9.10.08 I only put out half the quantity I was putting out before, and I will reduce it slowly. I hate doing this, I really do. They are so so hungry - they come whirling round me, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to get to the food. I sit on the wall and they will feed from my hand, five or more at a time.

The other day I was relaxing in my sitting-room, laptop on my lap and dog by my side, when there was a frightening bang from the kitchen and I discovered that a big male dove had flown in through the back door (which is actually our front door too!) which was ajar and was trying get out through the closed window, flapping against the glass. I caught him and wrapped his wings close around him and held him next to my body so he wouldn't struggle. My little yorkie saw that Mummy was fussing with one of those white fluttery things again and went huffily back to the sofa!

I wanted to ring the dove before I set him free so I put him in the dog travelling box with some food and water to recover until my husband came home (which was only half an hour or so). The dove, making the best of a bad job, started to peck up the food quickly. I named him Octavius as it is October, and ringed him with green (my colour) and blue (to show who he is) and set him free.

The very next day the very same thing happened again. This time the dove was smaller, and I assumed a young female. I managed to ring her myself - I'm getting the hang of these tricky ring! - with green, and red this time, and called her Octavia.









Photo of Octavius (left) and Octavia - have you any idea how hard it is to get a photo of two particular doves together out of a flock of at least 80?


A day after this, we had a more unpleasant happening. Some time after the morning feeding, I discovered a very mangled body of a dove under my washing line.

WARNING: skip the writing in brown if you don't want to read gory post mortem details.

The unlucky thing had obviously had a fatal encounter with a hawk as its body was ripped apart. Its eyes were open, looking like dead staring fish eyes - horrid! I must be getting hardened to these sights though, as after the initial shock of seeing white, bloodied feathers and a poor little corpse on my lawn, I was interested to see that spilling out of the ripped crop of the bird were grains of wheat. I put on a pair of disposable gloves (always a good idea to keep a supply handy) and placed the body on a sheet of newspaper which I then put on the garden table. I have never done anything like this before (except I vaguely remember with a dead frog in a biology lesson at school) but I was interested to see what this dove had been eating. I took a sharp pair of scissors and slightly cut the crop open further. The smell and sound was off-putting I have to say. To my inexperienced eye, the crop looked totally full. I would say that 80% were wheat grains, and the rest other seeds/grains including maize. As my feed mix is not 80% wheat - more like 20-25% - I have to assume that this dove, and no doubt the other doves, are finding food elsewhere. I did have a look at the rest of the body, but didn't do any more cutting. I would have been interested to see the stomach but couldn't face doing the deed.

Ok, safe to read on now -

I have seen Octavius and Octavia several times since I ringed them. There is a small group of 4 -7 doves that wait on the roof until just after sunset when all the other doves have flown off to roost and then come and appeal to me for food. I can't resist them so I have been feeding them a little extra at this time. Octavia seems to be one of them. There is also a rather tatty looking dove that is ringed with a yellow ring on one leg, and a white ring with a phone number on the other. I have seen the word Phone and then several numbers underneath but I can't so far get close enough to read them all. If I could I would phone the number and see where the dove had come from. I would imagine it has been living with the feral flock for some time as it is in rather poor condition with a bit of a bald head! I wonder if it's owner would want it back. I would if it were mine.

So to sum up, hopefully the doves are finding food elsewhere and I can feel less guilty about feeding them less. Currently after the morning feed, about a third to half of the doves remain on the roof and the others fly away. I suspect that they take it in turns to fly off foraging for food but keep a good look out here in case I decide to put more food out. I'm not looking forward to the winter when there just isn't any natural food left around. Of course I do love the doves, but there is just too many of them.


The end.

BIG Problem

101 doves! (and Spirit on the ground). Dove food - Economy on the left, Conditioner on the right.


Thursday 2nd October 08

(Warning: Blog contains photo of dead dove (at end)

There are too many doves around here! One day I counted 110! Any suggestions as to how to reduce the numbers gratefully received. The obvious solution is to just stop feeding them, but I just cannot do that. My neighbour says don't worry they will just fly off and find other food - but would they? Find food , I mean. I may have mentioned in the blog before that, a while ago, I saw something in a newspaper about pigeon corpses in the Trafalgar Square area of London being examined, and found to have completely empty stomachs - in fact, they had starved to death. I find that very sad. I used to enjoy feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square and taking my children to do the same. You could buy little bags of food from the authorised sellers - probably not 'tuppence a bag' but cheap enough, and then the pigeons whirled round you, feeding off your hands and even landing on your head. Rats with wings or not, none of us died from pigeon germs and I always made sure we took wipes, and washed our hands thoroughly at the first opportunity. The phrase 'rats with wings' was coined by Woody Allen, I believe. Of course I totally disagree. Rats definitely do not have the charm and cheekiness of pigeons.

I am not feeding the 100 + doves any more food than I was feeding 40, but it is very hard to resist. I feed them in the morning as soon as I get up - none too early, between 7-8 am and then I feed them again in the afternoon. The time depends on what I am doing but between 2pm and 4pm. If I'm going out, then I fill the pans before I go. BUT I have to confess that I will throw a few handfuls into the garden to any doves that are scratching around. To a certain extent I had to do this, for Spirit's sake (when she was alive - see update further on in blog) Doves like feeding together and I wouldn't have liked her to be alone all day. I also have a lame dove I call Limpet (limp pet!) arriving in the garden at around 6pm when all the other doves have left. I think maybe he has been ostracised by the rest of the flock - he is certainly hungry when he arrives, poor thing.

I'm hoping that I will find the strength to gradually reduce the feed I put on the island for the feral flock so that they will disperse to other hunting grounds. My neighbour says they won't. He says they will all turn up and fight over the food even if I only put out a cupful! But I can't starve the poor things, can I? It is a difficult problem for me as I would ideally like the feral flock completely gone before I start again with a new little flock of my own next May or June.





But the doves are SO hungry, poor things. They haunt the shed roof, the wire, the arch in the garden like little ghosties. Even one day, leaving the lid of the metal bin, I caught some who had dived inside! They will even land pecariously on the swinging house bird feeder and steal the bread and seeds put out for the little birds. What am I going to do?

I will welcome any sensible comments or suggestions on this problem.

*****

Update on Spirit:

Spirit is dead. RIP beautiful bird. She was not at all keen to come out of the dovecote on Tuesday 30th Sept, and I had to haul her out. When on the ground I could see that one of her feet was crippled in some way; all the toes curling in. This made it difficult for her to walk and she spent much of the day sitting. It poured in the afternoon and when I got home from taking my dog to the groomers, poor Spirit was hiding under the foliage from a pot of overgrown petunias, sitting on the ground, bedraggled and dirty. I brought her inside and wrapped her in two dry warm flannels and held her to warm her up. Then I put her to bed early in the dovecote with some food, and a little water in a jam jar lid.









Photo shows crippled foot. Spirit in trug on her last morning - she couldnt stand.


On Wednesday 1st October I again had to reach into the dovecote and bring Spirit out. Both feet were now crippled and she was unable to stand. I put her in my hay filled garden trug, and tried to tempt her with food and water but she wouldn't eat or drink. As I already had a vet appointment made for my dog, I took her along with me, knowing of course that she would have to be put down. I would've kept her if she could eat and drink, but the last thing I wanted was her to starve to death. My vet is lovely, a kind gentle man, unlike some of the brusque vets I have met in the past. He stroked Spirit but said, of course, that nothing could be done for her. Though she was a feral dove, I said that I had been looking after her and considered her to be mine and therefore had to pay for the euthanasia (£13 plus £2.28 VAT = £15.28 total). I could have taken her ring off before we went and just said she was a feral dove found in the garden but she was mine and I didn't want to deny her as I had had a month of her delightful company. We will miss seeing her little face peeking out of the dovecote.

I brought her body home with me, and, putting on gloves, examined her. I just couldn't see what was wrong with her wing - it seemed just the same as the other one. All the mites had gone too. Her little body, wrapped by her wings, stayed warm for ages. I picked some flowers and left her in the trug for a while, before giving her a watery funeral in the river.








RIP Spirit


******

Rings - I ordered rings and they have arrived. I ordered 100 green rings and 100 mixed colours - pink, red, blue, purple and yellow from Solway Feeders Ltd. in Scotland. I found them on the internet and they seemed to have the right sized ring for the doves (pigeon size 8mm). Unfortunately when the order arrived they had missed out the purple rings, but an email soon got a polite response and the purple rings arrived very shortly afterwards. They also sell other products suitable for doves - http://www.solwayfeeders.com/

These rings are more difficult to put on than the original rings I had (couldnt get any of those). I practised on Spirit before her funeral. It is better to have two people doing the job - one to hold the dove and the other to ring it.

A person called Lee commented on my last blog and ask me to email her (him?) and I have done so. I'm assuming she is a lady - anyway, she is getting a dovecote and two pairs of doves very soon. so CONGRATULATIONS Lee I am sure they will bring you lots of pleasure (and probably a few problems too!). I am looking forward to hearing from you again.

The End.