Month: June 2009

Collared Doves in the Nest

Collared doves first flew in to Britain in the 1950s, expanding their territory that already stretched from Europe all the way across to Japan.

They are fairly common now in England. If you haven’t seen one, the adult bird is a smaller and more delicate than a pigeon. Its feathers are a warm grey tinged and flecked with pink and a hint of blue and it has a white and black collar around the back and sides of its neck – hence its name.

While they are now fairly common in built-up areas in England, I had never seen a pair of young in the nest until last week.

collared-dove-headThe story began last winter when my mother’s neighbor put a folded-up director’s chair out on his balcony. A few weeks ago a pair of collared doves made a nest in it. And Sonny, my mother’s neighbor, invited me to look at the young birds and take some photographs. So I set the camera up on a tripod and waited until the birds settled down.

As I looked out onto the balcony, I wondered why the birds had nested there, right in front of the window, near the swish of the curtains and people moving around inside the flat.

One thing about photography is that it offers a chance to look at things that are not otherwise so easy to see at leisure. But what a surprise when I looked at the shot on the computer screen and noticed the size of the beak on one of the young birds.

Adult collared doves have a demure and gentle appearance with small, narrow beaks. But the beak on this young bird was anything but small. And now I have this image of collared doves growing to maturity with the bird growing up out of its already fully-grown beak rather than the beak growing out of the bird. I can see that some of the beak will be covered by the feathers that will grow in front of the bird’s beak – but still.

And I could see the little depression where the ear is – something that is completely hidden by a tuft of feathers in the adult bird.
 
collared-dove-young