A couple of weeks ago, I opened my window to attend to my sorry plants and noticed something moving in the heart of the palm tree in front of me. They had come back! My wood pigeons! Well, I'd like to think they were the same pigeons who chose this very same tree as a romantic spot last year. This time, they chose to build their nest right next to my window and I couldn't hide my excitement when I noticed two tiny little eggs under their feathers. "We're going to have babies" I said to whoever wanted to hear.
I started reading about pigeons behaviour, hatching time and such. I learnt that during most of the day it is the male that protects the eggs while the female eats to her heart content to produce her crop milk. I never witnessed the switch so I just assumed it happened at night while I was sleeping.
Woodland pigeon eggs take about 17 days to hatch and I effervescently started counting the days... Until this weekend. I woke up on Saturday, opened the window as usual to check upon my little friends and plants and here's what I saw...
An empty nest.
No pigeons, no eggs, no leaving note. They had disappeared! Gone! I am probably feeling more upset than I should, but I feel like I have been robbed of a happy moment, that I could have helped if something terrible happened while I was sleeping. My boyfriend reckons the magpies are the culprit.
I think our daily noise in the kitchen and living room may have disturbed them.
Or the female never came back and lonely and angry, the male gobbled his eggs, left without a warning and moved on. Those are certainly easier to consider than monster magpies to me.
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7 comments:
Oh that sounds so horrific! What a tragic end to such a lovely story... Hopefully a new group of pigeons will return to this spot for your eager watching :) x
Mooooooooooh!! Mais où sont passé les pigeons?? Je ne veux pas croire à l'horrible magpie non plus. A mon avis, ils ont profité d'un rayon de soleil entre les gouttes de pluie pour s'en aller sur un arc-en-ciel. Voilà.
Aww no! Something similar happened with the pigeons that were nesting on our air conditioning unit on the balcony, except the ending was a lot more graphic - we found a baby bird dead on the ground and the parent birds gone :( Hopefully your birds had a happier ending.
So beautiful to be so close with nature, even with the chirping in the morning ;)
Oh no, I hope they come back! The muyster remains.... :O
@Victoria: I keep checking the nest haha #sadperson. I probably won't get the chance to have another pigeon family as I should be moving out soon. Thank you for your lovely comment xx
@Célestine: j'aime ta version! j'espere qu'ils sont entrain de faire des petits pas de danse de michael jackson sur l'arc en ciel xx
@Jane: oh no poor baby bird :( I am glad I was at least spared that sight :( xx
@Stephanie Lula: i shall update if anything happens although now i'm scared to look at the foot of the tree after reading Jane's comment :( xx
it's amazing that you were able to snap these photos of the nesting wood pigeons! I wonder what happened to them :(
As for Arrested Development, we're on episode 13, I would have been done a lot sooner but I guess I had to go to work and also I wanted to draw it out as long as I reasonably could! The season has gotten better and better as it's gone one, I already can't wait to go back and rewatch it. The GOB episodes have been my favourite, I can't believe they brought back the shh shh shh joke and that whole Sound of Silence thing was unbelievable. I was dubious about the structure at first but now I absolutely love how they pieced it together in that Rashomon sort of way. I just want more and more!
Emma x
oh i didnt do any crazy climbing stunts, the palm tree head is literally on my window sill :D
i have absolutely no self control when it comes to series, i'm an awful binger! Gob and tobias are my favourite characters i think. It's gonna be hard now waiting for the movie release :( xx
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