On Monday (the 28th) two more chicks appeared. Chicks are easy to tell from adults, because apart from being smaller than most adults, their ceres are pink ('ceres', pronounced 'sears', are the small bulges doves have either side of the tops of their beaks). On adults they become a pinkish white. And chicks still have discoloured and incomplete feathers down their fronts, where the pigeon-milk they are fed on at first has dribbled down.
Both chicks are easy to tell from the other twelve birds because they are have distinctive features. One has feathers on its feet even longer and thicker that BigFeet's, so it promptly became BigFeet2. The other has a black smudge at the top of its tail, so became Smudge. Both were rather hesitant about me at first, far more than the first three chicks were.
The amazing thing about BigFeet2 is how fast it learnt.On Tuesday it tried pecking up little bits of food and could not do it at all. But on Wednesday it succeeded straight away. Obviously all it needed was to sleep on it.
Later in the day it fed from my hand, after being too nervous to come close the day before.
So now I must have a total of fourteen small white neighbours. But by this evening (Thursday) the most that had come at one time was eleven. It may be that this part of the forest is getting a bit crowded and some have moved away, but I think it more likely that some adults are sitting on nests, and that I can expect even more chicks to arrive.
I was given a kind of message that more chicks were coming, because last Saturday I found half a dove's egg by the front porch, which must have been deposited there by a parent. Obviously an egg-mail: 'Expect chicks.'
The egg is about 3cm in diameter and must have been about 6cm long. Pure white, with a semi-gloss surface. An egg as beautiful as the bird that laid it.
Other doves have copied BigFeet and landed on my head a few times, but it is the one that does it most often.
Both chicks are easy to tell from the other twelve birds because they are have distinctive features. One has feathers on its feet even longer and thicker that BigFeet's, so it promptly became BigFeet2. The other has a black smudge at the top of its tail, so became Smudge. Both were rather hesitant about me at first, far more than the first three chicks were.
The amazing thing about BigFeet2 is how fast it learnt.On Tuesday it tried pecking up little bits of food and could not do it at all. But on Wednesday it succeeded straight away. Obviously all it needed was to sleep on it.
Later in the day it fed from my hand, after being too nervous to come close the day before.
So now I must have a total of fourteen small white neighbours. But by this evening (Thursday) the most that had come at one time was eleven. It may be that this part of the forest is getting a bit crowded and some have moved away, but I think it more likely that some adults are sitting on nests, and that I can expect even more chicks to arrive.
I was given a kind of message that more chicks were coming, because last Saturday I found half a dove's egg by the front porch, which must have been deposited there by a parent. Obviously an egg-mail: 'Expect chicks.'
The egg is about 3cm in diameter and must have been about 6cm long. Pure white, with a semi-gloss surface. An egg as beautiful as the bird that laid it.
Other doves have copied BigFeet and landed on my head a few times, but it is the one that does it most often.
