Squatters

The first sign is usually a pile of twigs in front of the front door. Then one morning I walk out onto the porch and throw a Mourning Dove into hysterics: help me, save me, that big biped is going to get me, swoon! And if I’m away for a few days this time of year, I invariably come home to find a big dove-eye staring at me from atop the porchlight.

The two chicks in the current nest (only one visible here, but they’re both up there) are getting big, and it won’t be many days now before they fall to the ground, where they’ll huddle for a day before making their first flight (it tends to be a long one, all the way over to the end of the porch, where the Lesser Goldfinches spill niger thistle from the feeder).

And then it will all start again. They’re messy, inconvenient, and give the UPS guy a heart attack, but we sure love having them around.