In and around Sun City West there are three kinds
of doves: Inca doves, small with faint orange coloring on the wings; mourning
doves, medium sized and nearly entirely gray; and white-wing doves, nearly as
large as a pigeon and with the characteristic white feathers on the outside of
their wings. They’re an innocuous bunch
but not my favorites. Not that I dislike
them. They strike me as the idiot
children among birds. And if not the stupidest,
at least the horniest.
They don’t seem to have a particular mating
season. They mate all year long. All day long the males will chase after the
females and the females invariably play hard to get. Until, that is, they decide it’s time to give
in. Then they coo and kiss and do a
little hugging before the old guy has his way with her.
This morning I watched four of them do some kind
of four-way dance. At least it looked
like a dance. If they were having sex
then it must have been from positions I didn’t think were possible. They were in a tight little cluster, head to
head with wings fanning. I envisioned it
as a dove love fest, or maybe a big bird gang bang. They carried on this way for at least five
minutes. Then a couple of male quail
charged them and broke it up. I guess
the quail must be the avian morality guardians.
Dove family life is also peculiar. They don’t
seem to have any marital bonds or obligations, the males and females. Once the bang is over, the male goes his way
and she goes hers. And where she goes is
to build a nest of twigs where she lays two or three eggs. Does he help?
No. Does he stick around to help
with the offspring’s upbringing or to see how his progeny turn out? No.
A few days ago I noticed the mother dove was up
and sort of giving the two little (now rather large) children a tidying
up. I thought maybe this would be the
day they’d take off and I wanted to see it.
I went in the house for just a moment and when I came back, they were
already gone. I had wanted to see how
Mom acted when she shoved the babies out of her stick nest. Would she stay with them, sort of watch over
them for a while? Would they be able to
fly right off the bat? I know baby quail
can fly right out of the egg but I wasn’t sure about doves. Did she give them pecks on the cheeks and say
goodbye? Some birds have babies that are
recognizably babies trailing along after the parent—quail, robins, blackbirds,
to name only a few. But some seem to be
as big as adults when they leave home.
Have you ever seen a baby sparrow?
I think not. And the doves seem
to be the same. I’ve never seen a dove
that looked like a baby or adolescent having to be fed by a mother or
father. One of life’s mysteries.
About a
month later, I noticed a dove sitting in the stick nest. And a male also flew up there next to
her. Was it the same female going to
give it another go? Or was it a new
couple out looking for a place to rent?
I could almost hear her saying to him, “I dunno, Harry, it just doesn’t feel
right. And I just hate the drapes. I think we should keep looking.” So they did, both flying off to look at other
properties. But then, only a few days later, I noticed a Harryless female dove
was back, this time apparently to take occupancy. What a silly bird. If this is the same dove that just raised two
little ones and then led them away, then she must have gotten banged shortly
thereafter and now finds herself pregnant again. What a silly bird. She sounds much too much
like too many humans I know.
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