Birdtography

While sitting in my backyard last week with my camera, I had the opportunity to watch a pair of mourning doves. One of the mourning doves landed on a perch not far from me. As I observed, sitting quietly to avoid disturbing the bird, a second mourning dove landed on the same perch. Watching them, I presumed the first mourning dove was a female and the second was her male mate. Mourning doves primarily mate for life. The male slowly moved closer to the female, ruffling his feathers to impress her. As he inched out on the branch, he was still ruffling his feathers and preening himself. Then, he started bobbing his head up and down. The female initially acted as if she didn’t notice him, but as he got closer, she finally gave him the attention I imagined he was looking for. I don’t know what these birds were thinking, but pretending I can is sometimes fun.

See a high-res image of the mourning doves on my Flickr site here.