Latish this afternoon I went outside, and found half a dozen doves on or near my porch. One was the female that I have previously called Light-Feathered Feet, because she has only a few small feathers high on her feet. Some doves have no feathers anywhere on their feet, some have a few small ones, some a few medium ones, some, like BigFeet (aka BigFeet1) and BigFeet2, have so many and such long ones that their feet are almost invisible.
I must think of a shorter version of her name. Lightfeet. That is poetic enough for such a beautiful bird. And she is lighter in weight than others, especially F1 and M1, who are bigger and noticeably heavier. After a while she flew up to my right hand to eat the ground grain that I kept offering her, and when she had finished she went to my left hand to eat that offering too.
Then to my delight she again showed that she is not on my hands just for food, because she settled down on my hand to work through her feathers, and to roost, even relaxing so much that she stood on one foot for much of the time. As I stood there, with her contentedly being her dovish self only a few centimetres from my face I wondered how long she would stay. About three-quarters of an hour was the answer, then she flew quietly away round the corner of the building to do something else, perhaps to have a drink from the small jars of water that I have provided for them.
A wild, young bird, only weeks old, trusting me that much. How wonderful! Would that all of nature had no reason to distrust us, because we were not busy wrecking it!
I must think of a shorter version of her name. Lightfeet. That is poetic enough for such a beautiful bird. And she is lighter in weight than others, especially F1 and M1, who are bigger and noticeably heavier. After a while she flew up to my right hand to eat the ground grain that I kept offering her, and when she had finished she went to my left hand to eat that offering too.
Then to my delight she again showed that she is not on my hands just for food, because she settled down on my hand to work through her feathers, and to roost, even relaxing so much that she stood on one foot for much of the time. As I stood there, with her contentedly being her dovish self only a few centimetres from my face I wondered how long she would stay. About three-quarters of an hour was the answer, then she flew quietly away round the corner of the building to do something else, perhaps to have a drink from the small jars of water that I have provided for them.
A wild, young bird, only weeks old, trusting me that much. How wonderful! Would that all of nature had no reason to distrust us, because we were not busy wrecking it!