Every morning and every afternoon for the last couple of weeks, when I walk past the shelter in which I store straw, a woodpigeon flies straight out and I have got used to ducking to avoid it. She has laid a couple of eggs on top of the stack of bales. I last took a look after she flew out the day before yesterday and there were still two eggs she was incubating. I thought I would take another look today and one of them had hatched. It looked enormous against its sibling-to-be, still encased in an egg.
In our open fronted barn and our straw shelter, a nesting pigeon is not an unusual occurrence. Other regular locations are deep within the wisteria climbing the front of our house, and in a dogwood hedge to the rear. We often see them drinking from the pond at the end of the patio.
We have lots of pigeons around here and they feed well on the arable fields in late Summer. In the Spring and early Summer they target the brassicas in the vegetable plots, hence the lengths I have to go to provide crop protection. The pigeons are a frequent cause for complaint but coming across a nesting hen nurturing its chicks softens the heart and of course we have to forgive those who trespass against us.
No comments:
Post a Comment