Birth Announcement
07.20.2011 
A pair of our neighborhood Eurasian Collared Doves, who spent some days a couple of weeks ago building a stick nest among the red geraniums in a neighbor's window box, successfully hatched their clutch of two eggs on Monday, and are now raising two chicks.
Monday Unveiling
We can't tell the difference between the parents with our naked (or even binocular-clad) eyes, but birding sites say that the male and female work shifts (dad in the day, mom at night) sitting on the babies to keep them warm, and feeding them with the usual partially-digested regurgitated baby bird gruel that parents make. (Let's not go there.)
Tuesday it rained, but regurgitation must go on
Since these pictures were taken in the daytime, this is Dad and the youngsters. The helpless, down-covered babies take from fifteen to eighteen days to become fledglings (with developed feathers, and with wing muscles that are capable of flight). We believe that our human neighbors never open their courtyard windows, which emboldened the Eurasians. The geraniums do well with the oblique sunlight (this view is down to a fourth-floor window box in a six-story building), and with the intermittent summer rains.
According to Wikipedia, the Eurasians are originally from subtropical Asia, but successfully spread during the 20th Century to inhabit a range from the Arctic Circle in Norway, to the Urals in Russia, and south into Morocco and Egypt. Introduced into the Bahamas in 1970, when it is believed that some pet Eurasians escaped their cages, the species has dispersed primarily into the Gulf Coast, but can now be found as far as Alaska, as far west as California, and as far south as Vera Cruz. Some birding sources speculate that it is filling the ecological niche of the now-extinct Passenger Pigeon. It does not appear to compete with either the Mourning Dove, or with another "invasive" (non-native) species, the Rock Pigeon.
Like swans, the Eurasians are said to be loyal mates.
As recent immigrants ourselves, we welcome our new neighbors, and appreciate their echoing, resonant coo-cooooo-cooing in the courtyard outside our bedroom window. Even Marley, the cat, listens at the window for their music, perhaps more attentively than we.
This big on Tuesday
This much bigger on Wednesday
Reader Comments (19)
Coo-coo! Wonderful! Enjoy them and thanks for the gorgeous photos of these gorgeous creatures. :)
Congratulations! What lovely babies and what a loving, brave couple. Your respect and tenderness for this pair shines in words and in the beautiful photos (I'm amazed that Richard got such close, colorful shots!). xoj
from ornery critter curmudgeon central:
verrrrry verrrry cooool shots. utterly gorgeous in fact. and so dear to behold the new life lives in a French July that feels more like November. . but .......
if those piddddggies were above "my" head instead of below it, and I'd be going out in my bare feeeties to water MY geraniums and finding their guana under my feet, dropped from above mentioned and said geranium holder nest extraordinaire..., on my weee Parisian once upon an airshaft, now a hydrangea and geranium happy terrasse, ..... I might not be so enamored of those biddy birdies being fed, by mama and papa pidge. cooo cooo cooo.
ornery. yep.
xxxx,
m
p.s. best bird shots in town
:)
Thank you photophiles. Jen, these were taken with a 70-300 lens at 300, using a tripod. Even then, I cropped for the close-ups, and I'm glad they came out. The grainier ones required 800 ISO in the twilight.
We are happy neighbors.
Richard (and Kaaren)
Ah, Joan, wonderful to hear from you. We know how close you are to all living creatures, and these pigeons thank you for appreciating their beauty and their hard work.
Coo-coo-coo-roo!
Love,
Kaaren & Richard
Hi Margo,
Merci from both of us. Don't you love the violet bib he wears?
And these pigeons don't pollute anyone's terrace. They're nesting above one of our two courtyards where people don't walk. The gardienne of our building might have something to say, though, about pigeons that speckled the sparkling entrance courtyard where all her plants are displayed.
XOXO,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Stunning photos. What color is that, on the male's chest? Mauve? Damn. Even a Eurasian collared dove in a geranium plant is prettier than I am.
Reminds me of watching, the past few months, the birth of the hawkling outside the NYU Dean's window (via webcam), and the parents taking turns feeding him. She laid three eggs (the hawk mother, not the Dean), and all the experts were announcing the sad news that none of them would hatch, that she was wasting her brooding time when, lo and behind (I meant "behold" -- still jet-lagged, but I think it's appropriate), he pecked his way out.
So glad to get caught up now on Paris Play!
Anna!
You're back from Rome! Tell us about it.
That color on his breast looks mauve in some lights, violet in others. Your colors are as fine as his.
We'll look up that webcam to watch the hawks. Viva les bebes, who survive human pessimism!
We've missed your voice, and are glad you're back, but are you? Do you miss Rome?
XO,
Kaaren & Richard
How magical! and what timing to open your post - I had just sent an email this morning to Rob sharing this: "Waking to the sweet and reassuring sound of animals, crunching on some food of the wild, and looking out my very window, bearing sacred witness to a gathering of crows, contentedly sharing a breakfast of seeds under the tree."
How blessed we are to still have the connection of the wild, how wonderfully predictable that you both would spot and adore the natural world around you.
Namaste,
Pamela
will be in Paris for my birthday next year! will contact you for B&B references
Dear Pamela,
Oh, how sweet to hear from you with your quote about the crows (synchronicity!) and the news that you and Rob are still going strong, and that you'll be in Paris on your next birthday!
The best solution for lodging here is to rent an apartment <http://www.iloveparisapartments.com/>. Having a kitchen is very convenient for the times when you want to eat at home. I don't know of any Bed and Breakfasts, other than apartment rentals. We'll happily line up contacts for you.
Thank you, and much love, to Rob too,
Kaaren & Richard
Thanks K & R!
Paris’ spring is much later than ours in Scottsdale! All our birds have hatched and fledged a while ago!! Great photos and background info!
Here are two cool bird thoughts after I spent some time with mom this afternoon: we saw a bird that she recognized but couldn’t quite name....i described it to her: yellow head, grey body, small bird w/ rust on its shoulder. she found it: a Verdin!
And she said if she could be any bird it would be a fairy tern — she and dad saw them on the Seychelles Islands where they spent a week.
xo
Suki
Hi Suki,
Thank you! We're glad you like the post. I was alarmed at first to think the mother was trying to kill her kid. Just ramming that food down its throat. I too thought it was awfully late to be hatching babies, but what do I know.
I love the picture of you and Betty spotting a bird and finding its name. She’s so good at sleuthing the names of things.
I remember her saying if she were any bird it would be a fairy tern. They are magical-looking creatures, aren't they? Their feathers match her hair.
XO,
Kaaren & Richard
beautiful
Elena,
A poet's post: one word, concise and eloquent. Thank you!
Kaaren & Richard
Eurasian Collared Doves have one of the sweetest calls... what a treat. Great shots, Emeritus Head!
Do you neighbors who own the balcony know they have a nursery outside their shut window?
IF conditions are right, the loyal pair might come back to produce a second clutch - oh, to Marley's delight!
Isn't nature grand?!?!
Head! Great to hear from you.
If our L.A.-based friends don't know about your wonderful celebration to benefit Friends of Ballona Wetlands, they do now: <http://www.moonlightonthemarsh.com/> Everybody GO and support this treasure of an organization!
Meanwhile, no, we've NEVER seen the neighbors' courtyard window open, and, Paris being what it is, this rear courtyard view is not even of our building; it's shared with another building (or two) set at angles to us, so we don't even know our doves' address. We can only hope the windows will never get opened.
Your question reminds us to check to see if Paris has laws that protect nesting birds. We don't think so, since they seem to do some drastic tree-topping around here in any month.
Hugs to the Ballona birds, and the odd ducks who help run the organization.
--Richard and Kaaren
I had this notion that I couldn't live in Paris. Not enough nature. And there it is outside your window.
In Colorado the birdlife around us is big and predatory. Two huge great grey owls are perched in the trees behind our house, waiting for a little snack.....Ziggy the cat maybe, or Hoshi, the dog, a four pound appetizer.
Window box Eurasians in geraniums... sweet.
--Jane
Jane!
I have this notion that you COULD live in Paris. But here the mammals sit on the windowsill eyeing the birds. Marley is incensed that these doves are so close and yet so far, that without wings he just can't reach them. And YOUR great big owls are eyeing Hoshi and Ziggy. Which cat is in better shape, the one who's threatened by being a meal or the one who's frustrated because he can't reach his meal? Neither one gets to roam free. Life isn't easy, is it.
Great to hear from you, sweet sister.
Kaaren (& Richard)