Time for a catch up and pic posting!

Playing catch up again.  Thought I post these up already. Its of the new baby doves that hatched during early summer. June that is. One is a male peach colourd, the other is a speckled with white female.
Sadly the female died recently after the holidays of the dreaded egg binding. I discovered the problem too late to really save it.  I tried cracking the egg and she seemed to improve for a while but the stress and probably the bacteria got to her.  Had I discovered the problem early on I would have saved her like I did with another female in the same situation.  The new male is happily wooing the females especially my one handicapped dove who can’t really walk but can fly just fine. He is always bringing her gifts of twigs for her favorite hanging nest, cooing and nuzzling her with affection. Its so cute.

My oldest dove who is about 30 years old is showing signs of sore joints mostly in winter. Going to have to figure out what natural thing I can feed him to make him more comfortable.

Going back to the pics, these were taken in June in their outdoor summer cage.
Enjoy!

Female in the background while the male is in the front.

One step forward 2 steps back

Great news, my small illustrations got accepted at this one illustration place. Yay and that means I’ll be making some much needed cash.

Bad news, my little baby doves died. Sigh….. :( I suspect it was because it might have been the cold night we had yesterday. I found them squashed in the nest, with one of them barely alive. Probably the male as usual tried to keep the other doves out other then his favorite female but then I guess he gave up. They were so close to coming out of the nest, just opened their eyes and had already grown some of their feathers. Sigh….. what can you do. :`(

I think next time I’m in that situation I’ll try to find the surrogate dove parents their own place and hopefully they can succeed.

Oh Baby!

The parent doves near my mom's bathroom window successfully raised a family, which has since flown the coop. I still see them occasionally in the bushes below.

Another successful family of baby doves was raised in the front nest. Mom or dad is close by waiting for the opportunity to feed them.
I think they're just about ready to leave the nest.




The third nest closest to my summer doves cage was unsuccessful. Well almost.
I think what happened was he or she lost he or she's mate so was left to fend for its self and the nest.
He/she eventually got off the nest to feed and I thought would never come back. I haven't seen it all day so I thought the nest was abandon. The eggs were intact, so I took the eggs and let my own doves give it a try. I thought " what the heck its worth a try. They sat on them with no problems. I heard that the dove might have come back, but for me to put the eggs back, it was too late.
A few weeks passed and to my surprise they both hatched a few days ago.
So far so good. The babies are currently healthy and are feeding great. The babies seem to be getting allot of attention from the rest of the doves so much so its really upsetting my main boy Mr tangerine. I put him in charge since he is the best and most experienced at those sort of things. I hope that the babies will continue to be healthy and grow so that eventually I can let them go. In the meant time, I shall not touch them as much in order to keep them wild.
I'll try to take some nice pics.
As for the robin nesting near the garage, still sitting :D .............

Mama bird went out to look for lunch in the park so I got an even better photo opp today. I wonder where is papa bird though?



As you can see the babies eyes are just starting to open. I hope though that I could possibly get even better pics of the mama and babies feeding but I don't want to go to far because of the possibility of spooking them too much.

I also remembered that I had a bunch of grapes that have been in the fridge for a while. I took them out and placed them on the porch near the railing. I think mama bird really appreciated them. It was kind of funny when she and the grapes she was pulling at fell of the ledge. Yep I guess she really enjoyed them. I only hope they’re a little more considerate when her and her family start to attack our fruit tree and grape vine when the season is right.

Looks like we got some new neighbors. You know the birds that I guess pooped a smile on Pretty boys rock? Well they made a nest in the tree near the porch a few weeks ago, lade a few eggs and yesterday I noised two cute yellow and big mouths so far in the nest. Yep their robins. I'll try to take a few pics when of course no one is around. Its too distracting otherwise.