COUNTRY ROADS by Renee Kiff

Mocking birds and mourning doves
In a recent column by my friend, Ray Holley, he wrote that he hated mourning doves primarily because they drove off his favorite mockingbirds. Ever since I read that, I realized that all of our farm’s mockingbirds also are gone and replaced by mourning doves. Why? I wondered.
The answer has not been discovered by my small effort at asking google for help, but it did provide some interesting facts about the two birds.
Perhaps Ray will have some sympathy for at least the female dove, as Wild Birds Unlimited states: “Mourning Doves’ nests are woven together by the female with materials collected by the male. The male supervises the construction while standing on the back of the female as she works.”
They can have six clutches per year usually yielding two chicks. They eat a diet of nearly totally seeds, rather than your favorite peach, and they pant like a dog during hot weather. Now, how can you not relate to that?
When satisfying their thirst, they suck up water in one action, taking in enough for their entire day’s need, as opposed to other birds who fill their beak, raise their head, allowing the water to trickle down their throats.
At our farm, sharing the same fence, we have the chickens on one side, obtaining their water by the full-beak/tipped back head motion; on the other side are the lambs, sucking up their water in one full vacuum, never the lap-lap-lap of dog or cat.
Ray’s mockingbirds, while he had them, awakened his slumber by presenting often a 200 song repertoire during the wee hours of the morning, particularly if there was a full moon. Even more amazing is the fact that in one hour the bird can sing over one thousand songs, which, if you do the math, means that he repeats each of the 200 melodies five times.
Mimus polyglottus, translated to many-tongued mimic, doesn’t stop at 200 songs. He (and it is the male who is the songster) adds to his list as the months proceed, coming to the end of his serenading in November. It is interesting to read that his spring concert is different than his fall one. This is probably due to the fact that different bird species enter his habitat seasonally and he is learning their songs as he hears them.
Why is he mocking them? He wants the males to think that the territory they are contemplating residing in already is dominated by a male of their species and therefore is a “no trespassing zone.” Clever.
Nest construction is more of a shared endeavor by the mockingbirds, rather than the slave-driver/working drudge relationship of the doves. The male builds the twiggy foundation and the female provides the finishing touches of feathers and softer material lining.
Both species of bird parents feed their youngsters, with mockingbird babies leaving their parents after three weeks, often traveling up to 200 miles from their birth nest. It doesn’t say, but I think doves stay pretty much together as family for life. Otherwise, why have a coopful and allow them to come and go, as dove owners do?
Our neighbor when we first bought our farm kept doves and they would fly all over the area during the day, coming home “to roost” at night. Their “coo-coo” mournful sound, to me, resembled an owl. In fact, for years I thought we had owls in our oak tree until I realized it was merely a couple of doves. I should have known that owls don’t hoot during the daylight.
So, my column is a failure! I wanted an answer to Ray’s observation. It remains unanswered, filed with my other inquiries.
Personally, my most troubling question is:
Why is the planet spinning faster as I get older?
And why do I feel as though I am in the movie, “Groundhog Day,” and I keep opening the chicken coop, getting Patrick the Lamb out of his little house, feeding the dogs and cats, and then immediately locking up the chickens, helping Patrick into his little house, saying goodnight to the dogs and cats and there has been no time in between?
Does anyone give a hoot?
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.