Following on from my last post about birds in the landscape, here’s another example. One day recently I stopped in my local village for some diesel. As I opened the van door I heard a collared dove calling overhead. It was in a bucket under the petrol station canopy. Wow! I excitedly told the petrol station staff who were a bit non-plussed. Hadn’t I noticed before?
It turned out that the dove had tried to nest in a pot-hole on the ground last year, and then transferred its attentions to the top of the sign – without the bucket. The twigs it brought in for the nest just blew away. The garage owners took pity on the poor thing and strapped a wooden base to the top of the sign and then balanced the bucket of sand on top of that. The doves took to it immediately. Last year it raised a youngster and apparently this year it has already reared one young. On my last visit, it called, and its mate called back from a nearby garden.
They obviously don’t waste any time, these collared doves, and they’re not too choosy either.
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