Photo post: Mourning dove chicks

This summer, we had a pair of mourning doves set up house in a small tree right outside our front window. They had one “hatch” of two, then came back a couple of weeks later for round two. This time, I attempted to get photos of the chicks every day while they were still in the nest. The following is the result.

August 1

Mama dove stayed in the nest pretty much continuously from this time forward until a couple of days before the chicks were ready to leave the nest.

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August 12

This is the day the chicks were born. Middle daughter saw one of them come out of the egg; I didn’t understand how this was possible until I saw how the nest was visible from our living room a few days later.

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August 13

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August 14

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August 15

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August 16

I finally realized here that the nest was clearly visible from the living room of our house. More than that, the birds were much more lively when they didn’t know that they were being watched. Unfortunately, the windows cause for a lot of loss of sharpness in the photos since they have a fair amount of dust (and some glare and haziness as well) – some of this could be corrected afterward, but it’s also not an ideal solution. It did solve the mystery of how Middle Daughter saw the chicks being born though.

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August 17

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August 18

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August 19

I used a 50mm lens for most of these pictures. I’m really impressed by what it can do, but I’m still learning. The pictures here which focus one one bird each are amazing, but the one where I try to split the difference puts both of the chick heads not *quite* in focus. Things like this are harder to tell, though, on a 3-inch screen!

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August 20

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August 21

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