Out of my menagerie, it seems there isn’t a more appropriate critter to highlight Easter weekend than the one who mimics those bags in the candy aisle: my diamond dove.
She’s a shy thing without a mate, but this time of year lays a couple of eggs every so often. And yep, they’re exactly the size of Dove Eggs. Except I have to wait until she’s done sitting on the unfertilized eggs and then throw them out so a) they don’t go bad, and b) she doesn’t starve herself by waiting for that hatch date. (I can put a fresh sprig of millet, which is like Bird Crack, right in front of her when she’s in incubation mode, and she won’t be distracted.)
This little dove came into my life back in 2008. I’d always held a bit of a prejudice against birds as pets, writing them off as noisy and pecking. I now love conures and cockatiels and all in between, but there was something about the diamond dove. They’re very contemplative, sweet and gentle. The first time she cooed, though, it took me by surprise because it sounded like a train whistle. I’ve since learned that the five-note and two-note coos, along with a special guttural one, have different meanings; trying to talk to me when she can’t see me, when I walk to another room, when I’m right there, etc. And I respond, and we coo back and forth.
And I could have sworn that “she” was a “he” by what I’d read on sexing via the size of the ring around the eye and the feather coloring. Since the bird got freaked out on its first day home (another lesson: buy the bird a nightlight), hit its head and had a red spot there, I called it Gorby. When she started laying eggs and I realized he was no he, I pretty much called her LoveDove. She has a suitor in the form of an insistent pigeon show up outside the window now and then, but he gets spurned.
She’s not one for lots of time outside of the cage — even when I open the door to let her get some flight time, she prefers her habitat. Which I customized for her — I got rid of all the plastic perches and put in various sizes of natural branch perches. She hops up on the highest perch — in the vaulted ceiling of the birdhouse, so to speak — to nestle in for the night. If I walk past the cage at night, she’ll acknowledge me with a very low-level coo.
Since doves like to walk around the bottom of a cage and go scavenging, I use corn cob bedding and sprinkle some extra seed and grit in there for her to have fun finding. Her seed mix includes this color boost treat, which includes ground flower petals, that she’ll constantly beg for. Other than the extreme alarm I had when seeing that after egg-sitting she lets out egg-sized droppings, I know that she’s healthy and happy.
All in all, a diamond dove, an Aussie by origin, is a really great bird. If you have just one, it will bond to you. And you’ll bond to this feathered friend.
Never had birds as pets, but growing up for a time we had a couple of hens, for their eggs. We also had a young rooster chick, whom we had to keep out of the chicken coop as the hens pecked at him. It lasted until a fox got into the hen house, I guess over the course of a week and got both hens. The fox did leave Homer alone though. Each night my dad would give him more feed than he could eat, mysteriously it was gone by the morning. Until one night, when we went to the movies and forgot to put Homer’s food out for him. Never did see him again.
Then there was the time we tried raising geese. One or two of them got snatched while still young, but the rest of the flock survived. We did slaughter one of the remaining ones, but the meat was too tough, so the rest got to spend their days at a farm further upstate that had a pond.
Revelation Song, Mercy Seat, Easter, The Passion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDJjHOJw5bM
What a nice surprise to find pictures of your pretty, little dove. And you coo to each other … how neat!
Happy Easter to you and your gentle friend.
I kept budgerigars for many years. They are opportunistic breeders; they breed when conditions are good for raising chicks, not when the day lengthens to a certain degree, or what have you. As a result, in captivity (where conditions are always good), they will literally breed themselves to death, laying clutch after clutch and feeding the chicks instead of themselves.
A solution was devised years ago; ceramic imitation eggs, which can be substituted for actual eggs and which the hen can incubate until she gets tired of brooding. I don’t know if there are imitation dove eggs, but you might want to look into it.
What a treat to find such a wonderful article in honor of Easter. Gorby looks like a sweet, lovely friend of the feathered variety. Thank you for sharing her story with us!
Birds can be wonderful pets. My family recently lost a budgie that we’d had for eight years, and it was absolutely heartbreaking. He was the sweetest little thing who thought he was as big as his human “flock.” He loved to sit on my mother’s hand and just chill, or perch on my dad’s knee and run up and down his leg like a mini Usain Bolt. And he LOVED to watch football. I think the colorful uniforms caught his fancy.
For anyone who doesn’t think a bird can be a wonderful companion, I invite you to talk to anyone who owns one. Regardless of breed, birds are full of personality and individuality. And they are SMART little things. Those bright eyes are windows to a very tiny but beautiful soul.