Rick's July Tirade
The Doves' Nest
Back in the first week of May, as spring romped through
the Northern Hemisphere and the minds of its feathered
population turned to lust, I was startled to discover a pair
of mourning doves building a nest on my balcony. The
mourning dove is a gentle and sober creature named for its
plaintive call, owlish and forlorn, that drifts languidly
across lawns and fields on quiet days. Neatly clad in browns
and tans, tinged here with pink and there with gray, this
tastefully understated fowl makes only one concession to
gaudy ornamentation -- a mere brushstroke of metallic
iridescence on its neck, glittering rosy-gold or
golden-green in full sunlight. The overall design of the
dove is almost Japanese in its grace and economy of line,
from the curve of its smallish head to the tapered point of
its tail.
There was something incomparably soothing about the
prospect of watching this cooing couple raise a family on
the other side of the glass divider, just outside my living
room. No matter that my cat and I would have to surrender
the felicities of our balcony for a month or so; the
experience would be well worth the sacrifice, though I
couldn't speak for my cat. The birds would warm my bachelor
existence with a welcome measure of familial domesticity.
I'd imbibe the pleasures of child-rearing without the
awesome, inescapable and ultimately terrifying
responsibility of actual parenthood. No lifelong commitment
here, no squabbles over delinquent homework, late-night
partying or pierced eyebrows -- just a few weeks of idyllic
and intimate observation.
The doves were nesting in an abandoned planter about
three feet above the balcony floor. As the female settled
into a comfortable position, her lookalike mate began to
arrive with furnishings of leaves and twigs, which he'd pass
gently from his bill to hers. Then she'd tuck them under her
breast, or wherever she thought they'd enhance the decor.
Within a few days there were eggs, just two of them,
small and round and white. Then the long wait began. I'd
watch the solitary dove sitting on her nest, motionless and
infinitely patient, her dark eyes sweet but vacant like
those of a small-town manicurist waiting for a client. There
seemed to be no sign of her mate; I wondered if she'd been
prematurely widowed or otherwise abandoned to the plight of
single motherhood. When would she find time to grab a
wholesome meal during this interminable incubation? I
scattered some bread crumbs and bits of apricot on the
balcony floor, but I don't think she ever touched them.
In about two weeks the eggs hatched and a pair of newly
minted chicks joined the ancient tribe of mourning dove
society. They were quiet, sober, well-mannered children,
much like their parents -- no excessive chirping, no
wide-mouthed jockeying for extra dinner-portions in the
obstreperous fashion of baby robins and other songbirds. In
fact, I didn't see them eat anything at all. I would have
been concerned for their welfare, but they seemed to be
growing like radioactive tomatoes in a low-budget science
fiction movie.
I discovered their secret after leafing through one of my
many volumes of bird lore: it turns out that mourning doves
guard their nests in alternating twelve-hour shifts. The
father is supposed to be the day-care provider; the mother
arrives around dusk and sits through the night. I had
mistakenly assumed that a single bird was doing all the work
-- and with good reason. When I finally observed the change
in shifts, late one afternoon as I heard the whistle of
wings at the balcony, I couldn't tell the two birds apart;
they were as alike as Romulus and Remus, as interchangeable
as the numerous collies who played "Lassie" on TV
forty years ago. No distinguishing marks, no personality
quirks. And they didn't demarcate their shifts according to
the textbook day-night time scheme, so I couldn't identify
them by their hours on the nest. Sometimes the changeover
occurred around noon, sometimes later; the previous sitter
simply flew off while its replacement settled onto the nest,
feeding the young'uns by disgorging tasty morsels from its
upper digestive tract. Their irregular parenting schedule
seemed to be working.
In a little over a week the young twins had grown
feathery and confident enough to hop down onto the balcony
floor. They played under adult supervision for a few hours,
relaxed in the shade of my recliner and disappeared from the
premises by nightfall. That evening I saw the two plump
babes snuggled together on a railing near the entrance to my
building; they let me approach and I snapped their portrait
like an indulgent uncle. By morning they had vanished,
presumably into the blue skies of their vast new world
rather than into the gullet of a lurking predator. I'm
confident that they made it, and that even today their
wistful calls are drifting across the open spaces beyond my
balcony.
Such a pretty story makes you want to believe in the
benevolence of nature, all sweetness and harmony and cozy
nests full of pampered chicks. So I would have wanted to
believe; so, I'm sure, would you. Even a cynic likes an
occasional happy ending. But I'm not done with this
particular tale, and the concluding episode isn't nearly as
pretty.
I never had a chance to feel the pangs of empty-nest
syndrome. The day after the chicks had fled, the parents
were back in action. Cooing and flirting, they hunkered down
in the old nest and produced a new pair of eggs within days.
This time I resolved to reclaim my rights to the balcony in
the spirit of peaceful coexistence. I'd open the screen
door, sneak over to my recliner and ease back within
spitting distance of the nesting dove. We'd eye each other
for a moment and relax in each other's presence, though I
suspect I was a little more relaxed than the bird. My cat
wouldn't enjoy the same liberty, but surely he could survive
another three weeks of brooding doves on the balcony. All
along I was struck by the gentle dignity of these creatures
-- their grace, their patience, their devotion to the cause
of reproduction. It's important that I stress how highly I
came to regard them for their gentility.
Two weeks passed and a new arrival popped out of its
shell. I waited for its sibling, but this chick turned out
to be an only child; the other egg had simply disappeared,
its fate a mystery. The young hatchling looked healthy and
reasonably alert; it held its head erect on the first day,
which struck me as an accomplishment. I went to my computer
and occasionally observed the proceedings from a distance.
Late in the day I noticed a flurry of commotion at the
nest. It looked as if the parent might be feeding the chick
a little too forcefully, so I went over to the window to get
a closer look. The chick was, in fact, flailing helplessly
as the parent pecked repeatedly at one of its wings, which
appeared to be caught on a twig in the nest. The little wing
looked raw, already denuded of its pinfeathers. I wanted to
intervene but decided to trust the superior instincts of the
parent. It was a moot decision; within seconds, incredibly,
the parent flung the nestling out of its nest and onto the
balcony floor.
I watched in disbelief as the dove now lunged at its own
day-old offspring, pecking it savagely while its wings
whacked the balcony floor with demonic violence. The parent
would retreat for a few seconds as if to regain its energy,
then resume the terrifying assault with renewed and mindless
vigor. The chick was doomed from the outset; it didn't
attempt to flee. It never even had a chance to open its
eyes. It tolerated the murderous attack with stoical
resignation, sitting upright with its head held erect until
its whole body began to droop, gently and irreversibly, onto
the cement floor. The parent was going for the kill, and it
struck again, brandishing a hideous souvenir of its rage: a
tiny scrap of red meat hanging from the end of its bill. The
baby appeared to lose consciousness; it continued to breathe
for a few minutes, a tortured lump of flesh and fuzz, and
then it stopped.
Meanwhile, the killer dove watched from the railing,
attentive and alert, its dark eyes inscrutable as ever. Was
it the mother or the father that committed the foul deed? As
before, I couldn't tell which bird was which, and the
parents' irregular schedules made it impossible to determine
guilt or innocence based on the time of the incident. Could
the murderer appreciate the gravity of its actions? I'm
convinced that it could; it was intent on bringing that new
life to a close as swiftly as possible. Did it feel remorse
or regret over the incident? That's impossible for a human
observer to say. All I know is that the killer stayed in the
vicinity for about half an hour before it fled the scene of
the crime.
What had gone wrong? What could have possessed a devoted
parent to murder its own offspring on the first day of life?
Most birds and other higher animals have been known to
practice eugenics, though they're oblivious to the existence
of genes. If a newborn babe appears to be defective, out it
goes; it's not worth the investment in time and energy to
raise it against the odds. The ancient Greeks and Romans
would leave malformed infants outdoors to die of exposure;
surely a mourning dove is no less enlightened for
dispatching its progeny in a five-minute pecking frenzy. In
fact, you have to marvel at a mere bird's ability to judge
whether its baby is fit or unfit for life on this planet, a
good risk or a liability. But what troubles me is that this
particular baby seemed to be alert and healthy, at least
from my vantage point. What did they want from a day-old
nestling?
Could the parent have been trying to untangle the baby's
wing from that protruding twig? Did it attempt the procedure
and injure the young bird in the process, then decide that
its condition had been compromised beyond repair? Did the
dove's primitive brain switch from "aid" to
"destroy," or did it simply snap like the mind of
an overstressed day-trader?
Whatever the reason for the killing I witnessed, what
disturbed me almost as much as the plight of the sorry
nestling was the adult bird's sudden descent into savagery.
You might expect such an outburst from a hawk or an owl, but
it almost defies belief that a dove -- that mildest of
fowls, that universal peace symbol -- could be capable of
such rank and lethal violence. If a dove can snap, what does
it say for those of us who claim to be gentle and
compassionate souls? We might be sandal-wearing vegetarians
who listen to National Public Radio and contribute to People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but who among us
hasn't occasionally felt impelled to crush the life out of a
living thing, human or otherwise? If you haven't felt so
impelled, you probably will at some point in your
adventures. And because you're a rational creature capable
of overriding your impulses, you'll probably restrain
yourself, as indeed you should in most cases. A dove doesn't
enjoy that advantage.
I have to confess that I'm still capable of being shocked
by the depravity of human and animal nature. It's part of
what makes me a cynic but also what keeps me from hardening
beyond redemption. When I walk through the park on a summer
evening, amid the glimmerings of a thousand fireflies and
the fluty songs of wood thrushes, I like to presume that all
is well in the leafy canopy above. And I still like to
believe that the evil out there in the world will never
entirely overcome the good. But for now, if you don't mind,
I'm shooing away any mourning doves that attempt to build a
nest on my balcony.
