TWO MORNING DOVES

I was standing out on our back deck looking out into our woods when my son, Alex came out and stood next to me.

“What are we looking at?” he asked.

“Two morning doves.” I pointed toward the ground under the feeder.

“Where?”

“Right there. Don't you see them?”

He looked a while longer until one of them moved. “Oh, now I do!”

“I know they blend right in with the ground!” I moved over to sit in my rocking chair. Alex followed me and sat down too. “I'm calling them Fred and Ethel.”

Alex laughed. “Okay why are you calling them that?”

“Because I'm pretty sure they mate for life and Fred and Ethel Mertz were married forever.” I picked up my phone and Googled morning doves.

Alex sat back to watch them. “They do?”

I found the site I was looking for. “Yup. It says so right here, they mate for life.” I looked up to see them both busy eating the seeds. I scrolled further through the site. “Wait a minute, it says they're not always eating the seeds but might be collecting them in a pouch in their esophagus called a crop.”

“Okay, that's gross.”

“Well, now that makes sense because I've been watching them for the past twenty minutes and I was beginning to wonder just how hungry they were.”

“They sure are busy.” We watched them let other birds come to the feeder over their heads but would chase away any bird that was interested in helping themselves to any of the dropped seeds by them.

I was back looking at my phone. “They don't eat insects.” I called out.

“Okay.”

“Oh, here's something I didn't know.” I scrolled down a bit further. “It says they usually only have two babies and that incubation takes just two weeks!”

By now I'd found a video of them nesting and I hit play. A few minutes into the video Alex could hear the cooing sounds coming from my phone and looked over at me. “Are you watching a video of morning doves?”

“I am!” I turned the phone so he could see.

“We have them right in front of us!” he pointed to the two that were only several feet away. “Why would you want to watch a video of them on your phone when you can watch them live right here, right now!”

I shrugged my shoulders. “You have a point.” I placed the phone down on the table and looked back at the feeder where the two were still eating. After a few moments of quietly sitting and watching them do the same thing I couldn't help myself. “You know I was only half way through the cool facts about them. Don't you want to hear more?”

I'm sure the sound of my pleading helped change his mind because he just shook his head and laughed. “Sure.”

“Yeah!” I quickly picked up my phone and went back on the morning dove site before he could change his mind.