Mourning Dove
Anne has taken up the restaurant business. She has an airy and light little diner that almost always manages to attract flocks of customers. It offers patio seating and a mostly vegan menu. Lately, she has branched out and has begun offering meat (suet) entries. Maybe that is where the trouble began. Once you start inviting carnivores into a once vegetarian establishment, some of your regular customers are likely to start to get a bit flighty. The Mourning Dove, pictured above, is one of these now frightened, flighty birds.
Its complaint with the service at Anne’s establishment was announced with a thump. Moving to investigate, I first spotted a greasy, brown feathered smudge on one of the bedroom window panes. I rushed outside to investigate further. I expected, but did not find a body below the bedroom window. Looking around, I spied the pictured dove sitting on the neighbor’s fence.
Backyard Cooper's Hawk
It must have been still stunned, because it let me approach to within a few feet, not normal dove behavior. I don’t know if it was Pippin, “the alpha predator”, our neighbor’s cat, a Cooper’s Hawk or just the wind that frightened the dove into our window. In the past, all three have been guilty of this act. I think that the dove survived this ordeal, although it was still sitting on the fence when I left for work. It did make for a good photo-op.
Inspector Pooh-sew, the sewing detective, was placed on the case. She quickly rounded up all of the usual suspects, except for the wind, she couldn’t quite manage to grasp the wind. Pippin, the alpha predator, escaped custody, before any mug shot could be taken. This left the Cooper’s Hawk as the only guilty party left. Anne snapped the picture of the backyard hawk, acting suspiciously in a tree, high above.
I thought this might have been, Horrible Beasts of Flying Things.
That’s a different game. This post is more in the way of real life things. On the otherhand, no one would think twice about drinking a glass of water, but does anyone ask the opinion of the glass?
I love the restaurant angle to this post. When the GG tries to feed birds, his main problem is squirrels and chipmunks although there are certainly many birds of prey around here (uh, where am I?) A2 and/or HL and/or Siberia/Moominbeach…
@KW/GG or should I say, KWGG, of Hampton, IA? Glad to be done with those politicians? So far this year (knock-on-wood), squirrels haven’t been too much of a problem. Someone else must be feeding them.