The nursery in our garden

It's that time of year.

Newly fledged starlings have been hopping around the yard screeching at their parents for food. These little guys, who remind me of Einstein the way their juvenile feathers stick out in a crown over their heads, are noisy, ridiculous, stubborn and oddly endearing. On Sunday I had to get right down next to a particularly petulant little guy to shoo him off the lawn so that we could mow (Gabi was so sad not to have a camera for that one!).

This morning as I went out to water transplants I saw a baby bunny dash into the hostas in the corner bed. They're so cute when they're tiny! The momma looks lean and a little worse for wear (it was a hard winter for everyone), but the baby's adorable.


Somewhere in there lurks the cutest baby bunny.

Then, as I continued on, I found a young mourning dove crouched behind a planter in obvious distress. I caught him and saw immediately that his feathers were matted with pine-tips, the resinous, flaky brown bits that get pushed off the tips of the pine by new growth. So I sat down and took a few moments to clean him up. Then I noticed that he still wasn't looking good, so I inspected further. I found a whole sunflower seed ~ shell and all ~ lodged in the little guy's throat. So I brought him inside and used tweezers to get it out. From the smell of it, he'd been gagging on that seed for a while, poor little fool.


Fuzzy pic, I know, but he wouldn't exactly pose for me.

Now he's in a cat carrier on the back porch with fresh water and chipped sunflower nuts. Fortunately no cat found him, and there is no sign of external injury, so hopefully he'll survive. I just adore the doves that hang out in our yard. They and the chickadees are my favorites.

Update, 6/6/08: The little guy was looking alert when I left for
work yesterday but was dead when I got home. No sign of cat attack,
so I think there was just more wrong on Tuesday than I could see.