When I went out on the deck to fill the birdbaths, here's what I saw across the highway:
Think your job sucks? How'd you like to be these guys painting this watertower? We had sustained winds of about 20 mph all day. I looked through the binoculars but couldn't tell if they were wearing any safety harness or not (one would certainly hope so!) They were using what appeared to be 6 foot poles with a paint roller on the end. I look at this water tower every day and never noticed that it needed repainting. Talk about doing a job that no one appreciates....my hat's off to these guys.Riding around on the lawn mower always give me a chance to see what's going on in the yard. Sometimes a bird will fly out of a tree and that gives me a clue as to where a nest might be. Today I found this mourning dove nest. Mourning doves build the poorest nests! They need to be trained by robins. I put my hand by this nest to give you an idea of how shallow and small it is. We're supposed to have strong winds again tomorrow, so for the sake of the eggs, I hope Mother Mourning Dove plans to spend most of the day sitting on these eggs or they'll probably blow out of the tree.
As I rode past the robin nest near the garage, I checked to see if the little ones were still in the nest. There were a couple of loud robin confrontations with bluejays and grackles last week, so I was uncertain whether the babies were still there, but on this picture you can see they are, and just about ready to fledge. There are 4 of them, but the fourth one is snoozing behind the biggest one sitting on the right side of the nest.
There are baby grackles everywhere. Hopefully with them leaving the nests, this will slow down some of the fecal sac bombardments we've been receiving. The tree swallows are lining their nest in the gourd with feathers, but no eggs yet. There are a couple of house wrens in the yard. I checked 2 different houses and it appears that they are getting a nest ready in each of them.
Back to work tomorrow. It's been nice to have 4 days off in a row.
7 comments:
I got weak knees just looking at your picture of the water tower painters! I need to be more appreciative of the jobs people do. We had a mourning dove nest in the yard last year that was 10 twigs- tops! Sweet baby robin faces. I haven't seen any baby birds up here yet.
Hi Lynne,
do you recall if the mourning dove ever hatched any eggs from their little nest at your place? I remember seeing a plan once where a person could make a little nest holder from hardware cloth, but I've yet to try it.
Hope you are feeling better soon. I hate heights and react like Lynne does, with weak knees and a sick stomach. We have a lot of mourning doves around here, so their nests must be adequate, if not sturdy.
ruth
Yep- they hatched despite the flimsey nest. The plan for the nest holder- do you put it up and wait for them to use it or do you find the nest and put the holder under it? It sounds interesting!
Ruthie! I had mourning dove nests around my house last summer and they were so flimsy!!! I gasped when I saw them. Three twigs? We had T-storms and the babes survived and I don't know how. I don't have any other nests around here but I'm looking around in my suburban neighborhood :o(
Those guys painting that water tower makes me feel faint. It's like steelworkers. I can't look.
I hope you feel better. There's nothing worse than a warm weather cold.
Lynne, I'm going to try and find that plan for the nest holder. I think the only way it would work is if you place the holder under the existing nest. When I find it I'll send you a copy.
Thank you all for your concern with my cold. I'm feeling better, just the annoying cough hanging on.
Glad you enjoyed your time off-I've never found a mourning dove nest.
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