It’s not uncommon, especially this time of year, to see mourning doves vegging out on the wall outside my office window just behind our lime tree. After all, it’s a great place to sun, preen, protect your turf, and just basically hang out with your fellow doves and do the social and anti-social things mourning doves do. Last Wednesday, however, I was checking out this particular dove and observed behavior that can only mean one thing: it’s nest building time!

And so for the last week I’ve watched this pair of doves go about their business, and it’s a fascinating thing to watch. First of all, it’s pretty clear nest-building is primarily a morning and early afternoon activity – like their fellow occupants in this neck of the woods, they know that come two o’clock or so the sun’s too hot for anything involving manual labor – something dove nest-building definitely is! Second of all, there’s no question who has the hardest job – the female builds the nest while the male (good for him!) basically just impregnates the female and hangs out on our gate or the next-door neighbor’s roof and watches her do all the work.

And work she does! Basically, nest building involves five steps repeated over and over, five or so hours per day, until she feels the job is done. First, one you’ve found a suitable location for nesting you scavenge the ground for various twigs and other forms of nest-building material near the nest location. Then:

2. Return to same place on wall with building material in mouth. What a big stick she’s found!

3. Figet around for a minute or two waiting for the right time or wind direction or whatever, then curl your way into the same opening in the lime tree. It took three tries, but I finally caught momma dove on final approach:

4. Arrange nesting material as desired.

5. Return to scavenging area and repeat as many times as needed.

The first couple of days, the dove would head back to our wall before heading back to the ground under the lime tree, where there were all kinds of twigs left over from the winter and recent windy days. The last few days, however, I’ve noticed she’s found a cache of material across the street in a neighbor’s yard where they recently trimmed their mesquite tree. I don’t think she’s quite finished yet (although from all appearances the work seems pretty complete to me), since no one’s planted themselves there for the long haul of two weeks of incubation (male during the day, female at night) once the egg (or eggs) are laid. Here’s a picture of the work accomplished thus far:

Here’s hoping momma dove is a good mom and gets to do what nature is calling her to do. It’s an incredibly fascinating and beautiful thing to watch. Just another example of the wonders of God’s creation in all its splendor.