Mourning Doves Part 2

Well, the update on the birds is that the big brother has flown away (as far as I can tell). Hopefully he or she is finding a mate and having little birds of his own. Well, the mom and dad did come back. Lots of people have asked me about this. Let me tell you what I know. When was 17, I worked at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge as a Youth Conservation Corps Member. We mostly fixed broken fences or helped the biologist count birds or picked up dead birds who had died of botulism so it wouldn't spread, things like that. It wasn't glamorous, but I liked it. Anyway, when I worked at the bird refuge, I asked the biologist there about the parents abandoning their babies if they smell like people and she told me that wasn't true. We were catching and tagging birds at the time. I was wondering about it because I saw a Cosby Show episode where Rudy found some baby birds and was trying to fry up some worms for them on the stove and her mom asked her what she was doing and told her that. The biologist said parents probably tell their kids that because they want them to leave the birds alone.

Let me tell you what happened after I last blogged. I asked Kurtis to get some bird seed along with the other few items he was going to get from the store on his way home, so we could help Big Brother not starve. I went looking for him after dinner that evening and couldn't find him at first, so I was just going to put the food by the garbage can and let him find it later. He was behind the garbage can! I went to put the food next to him and he flew into the middle of the road. He was just going to sit there, so Kurtis said I should try and get him to fly back over to the house (oh, and he wasn't flying very high, more like a hover, but he could go a good distance for a little guy). So I went to nudge him gently (I was really worried I was going to hurt the poor guy!) with my foot and he flew the rest of the way across the street into the neighbor's yard. So I let him be, just left him the food and water, and went inside. The next day, I went to see if I should just get rid of the food and take my bowls back inside, and he was back. I could tell he'd eaten some of it because there was food around the bowl. I left the bowl there, and went back inside. I came out a few hours later to check on him and he was gone. So I figure he flew away for good because we haven't seen him since. But now Zachary really wants a bird. I've decide to look into it. He has to take care of it, though. That's the thing that we are apprehensive about. We don't know if he is responsible enough and will rise to the task. And I don't know how much it will cost, yet, so we'll see.