Mourning Doves Nesting

 

Mourning Doves - One Adult and two babies 

Mourning Doves can pick some odd places to build a nest and here is one of those odd places.  This hanging wrought iron plant holder is next to Mike's greenhouse and he walks by it multiple times everyday.  Since doves raise multiple broods in a season, it will be interesting to see if they use this nest again.  

Mourning Doves

Mourning Doves

Mourning Doves

Visitors To The Birdbath

Every now and then I like to set the BirdCam in front of the ground level birdbath.  It's fun to see what shows up.  I like this first picture of a chipmunk, looking right at the camera.

Chipmunk

Rabbit

Lessor Goldfinch

Chipmunks

Rabbit

Mourning Doves

Squirrel

Under The Bird Feeders

A good place for seed, is under the bird feeders!  It's an area popular with Rabbits, Chipmunks and Mourning Doves.

Rabbit

Chipmunk

Chipmunk

Mourning Dove

Rabbit

Mourning Doves Hanging Out In The Garden

This afternoon I sat on the steps on the hillside watching a few birds.  Mostly Mourning Doves and this one Western Scrub-Jay that was in the Pine tree above me.

Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove

Western Scrub-Jay

Mourning Doves, Just Hanging Out

A couple of Mourning Doves were outside the front door.  Just hanging out!

Mourning Doves

BirdCam on the Birdbath

Yesterday afternoon I set the BirdCam up in front of the birdbath, just to see who visits. A raccoon, house finch, western scrub-jay and a mourning dove stopped by for a drink of water. 

Raccoon

Raccoon

House Finch

Western Scrub-Jay

Western Scrub-Jay

Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove

Another Dove Nesting in the Garden

Here is another Dove nesting in a hanging basket in Terra's garden.

Here are some pictures I took in Terra's garden.

Baby Doves

There are at least two nests of baby doves in the garden and near our house.  These two birds are in a nest that is built in a plant tray under the house.  Mike found them and took this picture.

Mourning Dove,

And I found this egg shell under our parking structure.  The nest is up between a couple of beams and the parents sitting on the nest.  I'd would take a picture but it will disturb the birds.

Who's Digging the Hole?

So the other day I noticed this hole under a step in the garden.

I placed the BirdCam right in front of the hole.  The cat was interested in the hole too and sat there for forty minutes before  walking away.

Since there are a couple of bird feeders on a pole to the left of the hole several different birds came through the garden.

California Towhee

American Crow

Here is a video of the different birds milling about.  First a Band-tailed Pigeon, then some crows followed by a scrub jay.  Then some Mourning Doves amble through when the culprit shows up!

The hole digger!

Here is a video of the squirrel in action.

Mourning Dove in flight

I was out on the balcony one evening and took this picture of a Mourning Dove that was flying by.  The sun was low in the sky and made an interesting effect.


Mourning Dove



Photographing an Oak Titmouse

There is a small flock or "banditry" of titmice in the garden.  I noticed that they would pick the safflower seeds out of the wild bird mix and fly away.  All of the larger birds and especially the crows were devouring the wild bird seed in the platform feeder, so I decided to put safflower seeds into a small two port feeder.  The titmice love it.  I watch from the kitchen window as they fly up to the feeder, take out one safflower seed and fly away.  They don't sit at the feeder and eat like Lesser Goldfinches or House Finches.  I went outside with my digital SLR camera to take some pictures of the titmice.  It was really hard as they don't sit still for a second.  Just as I was getting them in focus, they would jump to another branch.  The auto focus had a hard time focusing too as the birds were among the branches of the trees.  I switched back and forth between manual and auto focus.  Eventually I was able to get a few pictures.

Oak Titmouse at the safflower seed feeder

Oak Titmouse

Oak Titmouse looking for insects to eat in the pine tree

Oak Titmouse, This bird was a little jumpy and it lost the seed (it's in the air) trying to get away to quick.

Some of the other birds seemed to be watching me as I photographed the titmice.

Mourning Dove

House Finch

Anna's Hummingbird in the honeysuckle