You'll never believe it but..

[Claire Fifi]

a pair of Collared Doves have already built a fairly substantial nest in the magnolia outside my window !

Sitting here in the upstairs office (OK, its the spare bedroom too) and typing away I noticed this cute pair, who are usually hanging around in the ivy in back garden. They have built a precarious looking platform of twiglets, plainly in view to all and sundry (Magpies, Sparrow Hawks and Crows) in the completely bare branches.

I feel sorry that they are so daft, but can't help admire their optimism!

[RKB]

Collared Doves (and to a lesser extent Feral Pigeons, Wood Pigeons) nest all year round, so it's not unusual. I've seen eggs on Christmas Day.

[Claire Fifi]

The only eggs I've seen on Xmas day were Hen's..for breakfast!

[Hedgehoggy]

I had a fledgling Wood Pigeon, with its parents, in my garden during the recent heavy snows. Not unusual, as the parents feed their chicks on a special crop milk, but I was amazed that the chick had survived the sub zero temps within their flimsiest of nests!

[Claire Fifi]

They are amazing birds, aren't they ? I know that Pigeons tend to be thought of as vermin, (although I love out big, fat wood pigeons and our lovely doves) but they are underrated IMHO. My son recently had to do some homework on WWII heroes and we researched the amazing carrier pigeons who were used to take coded messages.

It always amazes me how they bumble about in the garden, munching the seed that the others have chucked out of the feeder, and never get caught by the cats! They look so slow and clumsy but are very canny.

[ashgale]

ive just been watching a pair of collared doves taking twigs into a small conifer tree in the garden this morning, judging by the amount of twigs they have collected in the last hour, it must be getting to be a sizeable nest !

and the local sparrows have been collecting feathers and grass for about a fortnight now,


j.

[ashgale]

an update on the nesting collared doves, this morning i found an egg at the base of the tree, which had a fully developed chick inside, that looked to have been on the point of hatching, before some accident caused it to fall from the nest,

looking up in the tree i could just make out the nest (the foliage is quite dense)
with one of the doves still on the nest, so hopefully there is still an egg left, which should hatch any time now,
with more snow and frost forecast it will have a bleak start to its life,
but with some luck it will survive,

j

[Cowgirl]

Originally Posted by ashgale

an update on the nesting collared doves, this morning i found an egg at the base of the tree, which had a fully developed chick inside, that looked to have been on the point of hatching, before some accident caused it to fall from the nest,

j

Maybe it was a cuckoo? Joke, see cuckoo nonsense thread.

[treewee]

First woody squabs of the year today in a tree we had to fell.

[aeshna5]

There's apparently a couple of Egyptian Geese goslings in Hyde Park- another species that often breeds quite early.