The Winner is......

Sunday 26th April '09

Thank you to everyone who entered my Name the Baby Dove competition. Just a little update before I discuss all the entries and announce the winner.

The babies are now 39 and 38 days old. Victory is the largest and therefore I assume the oldest. They are making slow but sure progress. On Friday I had to be out the whole day, much as I hate to leave them. I got them out of the nest box before I went for a while, and again when I came home at 6pm. I assume,the rest of the day they spent in the nest box. They are both capable of flying short distances and Victory has even got up onto the cardboard box and then flown to the nest box. so they could come out on their own, but they don't.

Hope still tries about twice a day to get them out and I did see one come out to the hedge with her for a short while, but then popped himself straight back in. I managed to get a quick photo - it's not very good but you can see the size difference between mother and offspring.

These show Hope fluttering on the hedge trying to encourage the babies out.

When I get them out they peck at the seeds I put on the ground and in little dishes for them and have sips of water, but they do not move far from the immediate area underneath the dovecote.

Hope has caught me with them out a couple of times but she doesn't seem to mind. She and Pascoe spend time on our roof or on the island and if they fly away them come back frequently to be near the babies. I'm hoping when these babies have grown-up that they will have another brood in the dovecote but that will be up to Pascoe as the male chooses the nesting site.

The baby on my hand is shown the nest box, then I retreat a few paces and let it fly.

It wheels round to the right place, but ends up too high and crash lands on the roof!

I'm still taking them in at night but that will have to stop soon as we go away next Wednesday. I weighed them yesterday morning and they have not put on any weight whatsoever since the last time which was a while ago. However, they are being fed, and feeding themselves a little now, and seem perfectly healthy so I am not worried about their weight.

Now to the contest.... Over 70 names were suggested - Wow! Honour was the most popular choice. Suggested first by Wizzard, and then by Puffin, spelt Honor. DJ Kirkby also gave it a mention, as did Jane Grey in three different forms - Honor, Honoree and Honory and Zoe suggested Timo which means Honour. It is a lovely name, but no, I didn't choose it this time.

Grace was suggested twice, by Camilla and Jane Grey. I do like this name very much. My mother had a very elegant friend called Grace, and my friend has a pretty daughter with this name. Pearl was also suggested twice, by Puffin and Pondside, and I think that's a very pretty and appropriate name for a dove, as is Peace, suggested by Puffin and Jude.

My online name, Faith, was suggested by Tiggywinkle and Jude. Very flattering but I didn't want to choose that.

Glory was suggested by Billie Jane who probably didn't realise that the squabs' daddy (killed by a hawk) had been Glory and Jane Grey suggested Gloria in honour of him - that was a lovely thought, Jane!

Some of the names suggested by children were sweet - Snowdrop, Pretty Dove (just Pretty in it's own is nice) and Fluffy - doves ARE fluffy when they have been bathing. See!



Fennie, much as we empathise with each other usually, surely you didn't expect me to call my delicate baby dove Vic Labour to go with Vic Tory? You are being too witty or off the wall for me! Coo is a cute little name and I liked your clever explanation. Puffin suggested Little Coo first though.

I did say that I wanted a name to 'go' with Victory and interesting attempts were made:

Nelson by ArtSparker (and my husband suggested that too).
Endeavour by Lee. I liked your connections with this one, Lee.
Victoria by Celtic Heart. I liked this as I had some doves from the feral flock last summer called Octavius and Octavia, and Victory and Victoria would've been similar.
Parade and March - suggested by Fennie and Billie Jane's husband. Well I agree they do go with Victory!

Names that I have already used for my doves were suggested. Pax by Pipany - Pax was the leader of my original flock and was so special that I couldn't possibly call another dove after him. Paz, suggested by Pondside, sounds too much like Pax. Columba was one of my Pax and Persephone's babies, but you didn't know that, Celtic Heart. It's a beautiful name and I have seen my Columba back for visits on several occasions. And I think I called one of my feral doves that died, Blanche - as suggested by Jane Grey.

Other names that weren't quite right were:

Majesty suggested by Crystal Jigsaw - too grand! Your own name Crystal would be lovely now I come to think about it.

Endurance suggested by Pondside - no, sorry, it's not a pretty enough word for a dove.

Abrax suggested by Zoe - I like the meaning, but not the word.

Yrotciv (reversal of Victory) suggested by Calico Kate - I'd never be able to say it!

Verity suggested by Jane Grey. It's lovely but my niece is called Verity, and Valory (spelt Valerie) is my sister's name!

Some names didn't appeal very much including Jaws, Captain Beaky, Defeat (I know it was a joke EJ!), Alba and Dorothy (the name of my first Mother in Law).

Names that very much appealed were:

Fortune by Arosebyanyothername - I was very taken with that one.
Serenity by Camilla - a very suitable name for a white dove.
Charity by Jane Grey - very good for Hope's baby
Lucia by ChrisH- I just love the way that name sounds and ditto to Excelsis suggested by Calico Kate.
Cailean by Calico Kate (pronounced Kaylin and Gaelic for dove) - I've never heard that word before, it's lovely CH.
Constance by Zoe - one of my favourite names of all time.


So what name did I eventually choose for Victory's brother or sister?

When I said I wanted a name to 'go' with Victory, I actually meant I wanted a name that went with the word Victory, rather than the meaning of victory, or the ship Victory.

The names for my doves tend to pop into my head. I chose Hope as I was hoping so much that the pair of feral white doves interested in my dove cote at the beginning of the year would set up home and the name Glory of course followed on naturally. It has been a victory for me to rear these babies. The last babies hatched in the dovecote were the Ugly Dovelings, born at the end of July 07 who died aged two weeks and before them the tiny babies who died aged a few days old at the end of May 07. I haven't had any babies successfully reared for two years - the last being Francis and Iona - March 07.

So Victory it was for my first new baby in two years, and I suppose a Triumph for me (as suggested by Pipany, but no I didn't choose that one).

Although I wanted to have the naming competition I couldn't help names coming into my head as to what I would call the other baby if I was to name it myself, and one particular word came into my mind.

When I saw this name suggested on my blog I was very surprised and pleased. The very name I would've chosen. The perfect name!

PURITY

I love this name, and, for me, it works perfectly with Victory. Three syllables and both ending with 'y'.

So Purity is the name I have chosen for my 'little one' and thank you, Elizabethd, for reading my mind and choosing the very name that my heart had chosen already.

I will contact you through Purplecoo private messages to ask what prize you would prefer - a bouquet, some lovely chocolates or a surprise!

If Purity hadn't been suggested then I may well have chosen Fortune or Serenity.

Thank you very much everyone for reading my dove blogs and taking part in my little competition. Please come back soon as I want to add Jane Grey's YouTube photos (set to music)

of her lovely little woodpigeon squab - also called Hope - hatched among the geraniums in her windowbox - when I work out how to do it! If you can't wait then look up Hope in Paris on YouTube.

The end.

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Can fly, Won't fly!

Tuesday 21.4.09

My dove squabs, Victory and the little un-named one (see Naming Competition in blog below) are very reluctant indeed to come out of the nest. Hope has spent time on the hedge or on top of the dovecote encouraging them to join her. Even if she is on top of the cote and they can't see her, they can obviously sense her as they immediately start their high pitched 'peeping'. She is slackening off the feeds no doubt in an effort to force them out of the nest.

I have taken them out every day since the first time - see previous blog - and have ringed them. I have made them a box to go in if they tumble out of the nest when I'm not around, and put Spirit's branch for them to sit on too. (Spirit was my beautiful dove that couldn't fly - see last late summer blogs). The first time I took these babies out I was afraid they would scramble away from me and get under the hedge so I arranged all sorts of boxes and stuff around to make a pen.

The nursery box to hide in and Spirit's branch.



This is Victory, with his pink ring, he jumped into the water but jumped out again pretty quickly. You have to have shallow water trays for the young squabs or they could drown.

This is the little one, with the purple ring, looking around and assessing the situation.

They ignored the food, because they prefer Mummy to feed them, thank you very much!







The little one crouches and jumps up onto the low branch easy peasy!

Since I started taking them out of the nest three days ago, they have learnt to fly quite well. They just don't want to let on to Mummy Hope!

They quickly learn to fly up onto the step ladder from the ground. There was me worrying they would be scrambling into the bottom of the hedge, and they could actually almost fly onto it!

This is a close up of Spirit, an adult dove, so you can see the difference particularly in their beaks. It's the little one again in the photo, 33 days old.

More close ups of the little one. He seems slightly more tame than Victory, though I give them equal amounts of attention.

Here he is again on my finger. Bob Friar from Everlasting Doves told me to handle them as much as possible and I would love it if they were tame when they are adult, but I don't count on it.

Here you see how un-feathered they still are under their wings, and how delicate their wings are. Victory flew up to the wooden rung on his own from the ground. See the yellow down on his head blowing in the breeze.

Now I put the babies on my hand and raise it to the dovecote and they fly to the entrance and scramble in.

That's all for now. The Naming Competition close this coming Saturday 10pm, so please have a go naming my Little One if you haven't already, and you can choose up to 10 names each.

The End.

(You may have to scroll down for the comments section. I just can't master how to get everything just so on Blogger!)

Name the Babies Competition

Happy Step-Families! This is widowed Hope, with her new mate Pascoe, and her two babies inside the nest-box.

Saturday 18th April '09

Hope and Glory's squabs are now 30 and 29 days old and I think it's time to name them. If you want to skip my updating waffle then just scroll down to the Naming Competition part!

Hope has been leaving them since they were two weeks old and I have taken them into the house every night, partly to keep them warm and partly to keep them safe from predators in the very early morning. In the past my parent doves have slept in the dovecote and would have been 'on guard' but Hope is entirely feral and only here because Glory (now dead) chose it as a suitable nesting site, and as she now has a new mate, Pascoe, she has been leaving them and no doubt spending the night with him! I have no idea where the doves all go at night, but there are lots of barns on the farm and nearby farms.

In the beginning I kept the squabs in the kitchen near the aga to keep them warm, but the last few nights have been putting their nursery box in the conservatory to harden them off a little!

Hope has been spending some time each day on the hedge, looking up at the nestbox, maybe in an attempt to encourage them out. I believe pigeon (dove) squabs fledge at about 30-40 days so shouldn't be long. We are going away in 11 days time so I hope they hurry up and do it before we go! This is important as they will need help to get back up into the dovecote at night until they can fly.

When the doves were away this afternoon, I took each baby out of the dovecote and put it on the grass (for no longer than a minute) to let them see the world beyond their little dark and smelly space! After four weeks in the nest the nestbox is rather unpleasant - although I do do a bit of pooper-scooping, and as they spend the night in the nursery box that does help reduce the mess in the dovecote. The smallest one came out first and seemed quite at home, looking around calmly. The doves came back to the roof just after I'd taken photos of the largest one, so I quickly tried to catch him to put him back before Hope noticed but he fluttered and flapped about the grass so fast that I could hardly catch him!

Smallest one looks around and then hops up onto the stepladder - I am impressed!

This is the largest one - see the yellow down, punk style, still on his head.

Naming Competition

I have decided on a name for the largest, and I presume the oldest, of the two squabs. He (or she - it is extremely difficult to sex pigeons until they are old enough to display characteristic male or female behaviour) is going to be called Victory. He is the one with pink colouring on his tail, on the right in the photo.

So your task is to name the other one! You can choose a male or female name, or just a lovely or suitable word, but it has to go well with Victory.

These are the actual shells that these squabs hatched from.

This baby will be ringed with a purple ring (of course, as it is a Purplecoo baby) and Victory will have a pink one.

You can choose up to 10 names each, and the competition is open to anyone who reads my blog, including children.

No favouritism, I will just choose the name I like best.

The prize will be your choice of a bouquet of flowers, or some lovely chocolates, or a surprise! So you will have to be prepared to give me your address so that I can send it to you. You have a week to think about it as the Closing date is Saturday 25th April '09 at 10pm.

I am looking forward to seeing your suggestions, and thank you in advance.

The End

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Four Week Birthday - and weighed again

Thursday 16th April 09

Hope and Glory's babies (squabs) are four weeks old today. The oldest, and I assume that is the largest one, is 28 days and the smallest, 27. As you know, poor Glory died at the claws of a hawk when they were only days old, and Hope has done a magnificent job rearing them on her own. According to various studies, when one parent dies and the babies are very young, the remaining pigeon parent will chuck one baby out of the nest as it can usually only rear one. Hope has had unlimited access to food of course and that has made it easier for her. On Tuesday 14.4.09 the day's feeding schedule went like this - mind you this is just the feeds I saw, there may have been more: 7.30 am, 7.45 am, 8.20 am, 10.00 am, 4.15 pm and 6.50 pm. Some days there are less feeds and then I get worried that they might not be getting enough food. Mind you feeding does slacken off eventually so that hunger drives the babies out of the nest to fledge.

Hope goes in to feed. If you can click on this photo which should enlarge it, you will just see a squab's little beak lower right.

The babies are now very vocal. I've been able to hear their faint peeping since they were a week old, but now I can hear their high pitched squeaking for food when I am in the house with the doors and windows shut! Yes, it's that loud! And this is the reason that I am alerted to many of the feeds - I hear the squeaking, look out and see Hope's in the nest box. If you are ever in a town with old buildings and you hear noisy high squeaking then look up because there could well be a pigeon's nest tucked up in the nooks and crannies somewhere. Another giveaway is the mess on the buildings and the ground nearby of course. Squabs are sometimes called 'squeakers' for this reason.

They are also much more visible at the door of the nestbox, appearing and disappearing like little ghosts. If I see them and approach, then they shimmy down out of sight. They are still nervous and cautious, although don't seem to mind me handling them too much when I collect them at night to bring them into the kitchen and put them back in the morning.

A little face at the window

And sometimes two!

I weighed them again this morning to see if they had gained from when I weighed them on the 13th - see previous blog - and also because CalicoKate wanted to see a photo of one of them on the scales. So these are specially for you CK!

Big enough to peep out of the box, but not climb out!


Won't stand still on the scales!

Posing nicely now! - This is the smaller one of the two.

The largest one, tail marked with pink, was 9 and 3/4 ounces and is now approx. 10 ounces

The smaller one, was 7 and 3/8 ounces and is now approx. 8 and 1/2 ounces.

(This is their weight gain in 3 days, but difficult to be accurate as they kept getting off the scales!)

According to 'the book'*at 28 days feral pigeon squabs should be between 300 - 350g (i.e. 10 - 12 ounces) so my biggest one is just hitting the target and the other is underweight.

Notice the claws - they are extremely sharp!

I will be having a Naming Competition for them soon, with a prize, so watch this space!

* The book is 'Feral Pigeons' by Richard F. Johnson & Marian Janiga and costs over £70. It is on order for my birthday!

The End

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Weighing the Babies

13.4.09

Easter Monday, and I weighed the squabs in the kitchen this morning before I put them back in the nest. I marked the largest one by dabbing pink colouring onto it's tail, then I popped it on the scales. Luckily I have a flat scale and it stood still. I measured them in ounces as I know where I am with ounces! The big one weighed nine and three-quarter ounces and the smaller one, seven and three-eighths ounces.

Although I know Hope is feeding them, as I see her doing so, and I can feel the grain in their crops when I pick them up, I thought it would be useful to take their weights and see how much they are gaining.

I've had difficulty in the past finding information about pigeons/doves on the internet but I have recently found a brilliant (but expensive at over £70)book - some of which can be viewed online - with detailed info about feral pigeons. Apparently squabs at this age should be about ten ounces - so my biggest one is not too far behind. It also said that in the case of one parent dying when the squabs are less than 4 days old (as in this case with Glory dying when the babies were only 3 and 2 days old) the remaining parent usually chucks one of the squabs out of the nest as it can only rear one, so I am extremely lucky that Hope didn't do this. One reason for this could be that there is always food available from 6am to dark, and Hope doesn't have to forage to feed her babies.

I also found a blog from a few years ago with photos of the development of a pair of pigeon squabs - nice photos, have a look here www.blogd.com/pigeons.html

I took the squabs in about 9pm, half an hour later than normal. They were warm, but didn't seem as warm as the other nights. I think they would lose a lot of heat over the night, with no parent dove in the dovecote with them and might die. I can't risk it, even though I can sense they don't really want to be removed from the nest.

The other doves? I haven't said much about the general flock recently being so pre-occupied with the babies. The flock is small - I'm not seeing more than 30 birds together (remember the huge summer flock of 100 or more!). Nero, my black dove, is still around and the dove I ringed in the summer with two green rings, Sweetie but other doves I ringed like Octavius and Octavia and Rose have not been seen for some time. There is a nest in the barn on the farm, see photo above, but after spotting it and taking the photo I havent been back to look just in case there had been a disaster.

I often drive under a railway bridge at a traffic lights, one of the old fashioned types with plenty of roosts for pigeons. I always hope the lights are red so I can observe. There are many nests, but I wonder how many of these squabs survive. When they tumble out of the nest at 4-5 weeks old they are going to land straight onto a main road poor little things. According to the informative book, it seems that only 25% of squabs would survive from egg to total independance at around 7 weeks anyway.

If my babies do survive, and I'm not taking this for granted, I will have a naming competition for one of them - I've thought of a name for the other.

The end

9th April - Three weeks old today!

Thurs. 9th April '09

Hope's squabs are three weeks old today - well there are 21 and 20 days old precisely. Hope seems to have settled into the pattern of leaving them at night and flying off with her new mate. The last night she stayed with them was Sunday. I take them into the kitchen and keep them overnight in a box to keep them warm if she is not with them. So far she hasn't neglected to come back and feed them in the mornings, thank goodness, but it is a constant worry.

I took their 3 week old birthday photo early this morning before I put them back in the nest.

They are much bigger than when I first took them into the kitchen overnight, last Thursday. I need to find them a bigger box to sit in, and a taller box to contain that in. This morning one of them tried to scramble out in an ungainly but determined fashion!

Their heads still retain a little yellow fluffiness, but all in all they look much more like an adult dove, with strong, quite big wings.

As you can see from the above photo, they foul the overnight box considerably. I am pleased to see this because obviously it means they are getting enough food. It also means that the nest in the dovecote is rather less dirty than it would normally be - and that is VERY dirty and disgusting indeed by the time they leave the nest at about four weeks old.I think this one is looking quite intelligent now!

I have named Hope's new mate Pascoe. I believe this is the Cornish version of Pascal, which is a name given to those born at or around Easter. It means 'suffering' though (i.e. the suffering of Christ) so I hope that's not a bad omen.

Another parent dove was feeding with Hope this morning. I could tell as it had a dirty breast - this often happens when they go in and out of the nest area. There is a white dove on a nest in the big barn on the farm so maybe it's that one.

The end.

Part 4 - Devil Dove!

The photo shows Hope, a week or so ago, one frosty morning, about to eat a pea. The pink mark on her side is food colouring so I can identify her.

Monday 6th April 09

Please read Parts, 1,2 and 3 in the blogs below this one

Hope had stayed away the night of Sat. 4th April and I had again kept the babies in the kitchen overnight and put them back in the nest before she arrived back in the morning. She did come back and fed them several times in the early morning, and again about 11.20 am that I saw.

I didn't see her feed them after this time, and in case she truly did abandon them I went up to the WildLife Aid animal hospital at Leatherhead to get some advice http://www.wildlifeaid.org.uk/ This wonderful place always need donations of money or food for the animals so do help if you can. When I arrived they had two adorable little five-week old fox cubs, and I was able to stroke one. I'd never seen one in the flesh before and was enchanted by them - they seemed like a cross between a puppy and a kitten - doggie shaped, but kitten soft fur and tail. The woman I spoke to was very helpful, but said that the squabs, if truly abandoned, would have to be fed by tube and I wouldnt be able to do it myself, but could hopefully have them back when they could feed themselves. I left reassured that whatever happened they could be reared, and promised to bring back a donation of puppy food for the baby foxes, and nuts for the baby squirrels.

That afternoon about 4pm I happened to be in the garden and as a few doves alighted on the roof, I saw a flutter of pink and green feathers amonst the white ones. The intruder dove was back - all the way from where it was released in London on Friday morning!

I know pigeons - and the doves are just white pigeons - have the homing instinct, but somehow, after the fright of being caught and confined, I hadn't expected it to come back. I can't really describe how I felt; immediately nervous and panicky about what it would do. I realised it was a male as it started displaying courting behaviour to the females on the roof.

A group of doves flew over to the island to feed and he went with them, the colours on his tail marking it out in the sky with the others. I wondered if anyone between here and London had seen it and remarked. Then they all flew back and when he positioned himself right at the end of the bit of roof nearest the dove cote I knew by instinct that he hadn't forgotten and had evil on his mind.

I stood without moving next to the end of the shed, my hands on the stepladder and my heart literally in my mouth. I watched the marked dove watching the dovecote, and I knew Hope wasn't in there. He flew down to the cote and perched on the step of one of the other entrance holes, still looking around - probably for Hope and assessing whether he could get away with it. My hands gripped the stepladder but I didn't move. After only a few seconds, it flew to the nestbox and entered. Carrying the stepladder I literally flew, lightly in bare feet, across the lawn, set it up and ran up the steps, I don't know how, my hand going up, fingers outstretched, to block the hole, so it couldn't fly out and away, to come back when I wasn't there. I could hear the frantic squeaking of the squabs, reached in and grabbed it extremely firmly and ran back into the house, and closed the kitchen door. My heart was thumping so much I could hardly speak, but I faintly managed to say my husband's name and he came out to me. I didn't want to do what happened next, but I felt it was the only way to protect the babies. We had given the marauder a chance by taking it to London, and it had just flown back and seemingly straight to the dovecote to attack the squabs - so it had to go. My husband used to work on a farm, and he has reared pheasants and other birds. He despatched it quickly and I didn't watch. You may think this was wrong, killing a healthy dove, but I had to protect those babies.

I felt weak and shaky for about two hours afterwards and had a gripping pain in my lower abdomen - not from the killing of the marauder but from what might have happened to the vulnerable little squabs.

I didn't see Hope again til 6pm and she didn't feed the babies. I was worried that she maybe had witnessed some of what happened, and wouldn't go back to them this time. I kept looking out as the sun was gone, evening approached and eventually, thank goodness she came back, very late, at 7.30pm and fed them, and stayed with them for the night.

So that's the story up to date at the moment. I would love it all to go peacefully and smoothly now, but I don't count on it. The babies are 18 and 17 days old today and need another 10 days in the nest before they will be able to come out and start learning to fend for themselves.

The end