It's not quite 'We have a problem, Houston,' but the latest addition to the flight of doves in my forest, a chick that appeared with the rest at breakfast-time this morning, has just found that fluttering down from the nest for the first time is not as easy as getting back up.
When the rest of the flight went up to their high roosts for the night the chick tried to follow them, but could not get more than a few centimetres off the ground. Its head bobbed about as doves' heads do when they are having a think or are worrying about something, and it was obviously doing both when it contemplated trying to fly just the three metres to the roof on that side of the building, but even that was too much. It had a wander to and fro, fro and to, to and fro, fro and to, to and fro, then tried again, but it was just too daunting. Fluttering is not flying, and fluttering is all it can manage, or summon up the courage for. And strong flying is needed to get to a treetop roost twenty or twenty-five metres off the ground.
It was too quick for me to catch it and take it up a ladder to the roof, so in the end it went under the building, as other new chicks have.
I hope there's no passing cat during the night. But it is better fledged than some other new chicks have been, so if it survives it should not be long before it gets the courage and the strength of wings to be what it is: a wild dove, born in the forest, a creature of air and tall green trees.
(Footnote, next morning: it was alive and well and wailing to every adult to be fed.)
When the rest of the flight went up to their high roosts for the night the chick tried to follow them, but could not get more than a few centimetres off the ground. Its head bobbed about as doves' heads do when they are having a think or are worrying about something, and it was obviously doing both when it contemplated trying to fly just the three metres to the roof on that side of the building, but even that was too much. It had a wander to and fro, fro and to, to and fro, fro and to, to and fro, then tried again, but it was just too daunting. Fluttering is not flying, and fluttering is all it can manage, or summon up the courage for. And strong flying is needed to get to a treetop roost twenty or twenty-five metres off the ground.
I hope there's no passing cat during the night. But it is better fledged than some other new chicks have been, so if it survives it should not be long before it gets the courage and the strength of wings to be what it is: a wild dove, born in the forest, a creature of air and tall green trees.
(Footnote, next morning: it was alive and well and wailing to every adult to be fed.)
