Mark S. of Springfield, PA

by Mark S.
(Springfield, PA)

Well we have a front porch on our home. Across the front of our home each spring I place five 10 inch hanging flower baskets. I was surprised to see in the basket closest to our front door a morning dove sitting on her eggs.

Now we have a male 110 pound German Shepard who likes to go out to our front yard quite a bit, and we go out with him. We pass by the nesting dove and I am within 18 inches of that basket and that dove does not move.

We do have a bird feeder on our deck which is on one side of our front porch. We only use black sunflower seeds because we like the birds it seems to attract: Cardinals, doves, bluejays and a variety of finches.

Getting back to our nesting doves I am wondering if I should try to feed her. She did allow me to place a half of a saltine cracker on the edge of her nest. It has been two hours and she has not touched that cracker. I wonder if there is a way I could place the sun flower seeds on the edge of her nest? Anyway from reading some of my google replies it seems like she will be sitting on those eggs for fourteen days,and once the babies are hatched they will hang around for another fourteen days before they leave the nest. That is a full month, and they did not even sign a lease!
I will try to get a picture of the dove sitting on her nest in a follow up.