[cobirds] Update on nesting E. collared-doves, Jefferson Co.

For those of you keeping score at home, the pair of Eurasian Collared-doves in my yard (Littleton, JeffCo) have been keeping busy.

On Jan 20th, the pair flew into my backyard and there was extended courtship and then copulation. It was 9 degrees F. This was at the end of the prolonged cold spell where it got to about -7F here on a couple of previous nights. Details on the interesting behavior here:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S210105706

A bird has been on and off the nest in the last week, more often off the nest for extended periods, and I wasn't sure what was going on. However, there's been a bird on the nest every time I checked over the last couple days. This morning I finally got around to attaching a small mirror to an extending pole (don't tell my daughter I took her favorite mirror and used duct tape on it) and confirmed there are 2 eggs in the nest. This is the same nest they've used at least twice previously. I do not know if they are sprucing up the nest with new sticks or material for each of these nesting attempts or cleaning it out at all. It brought me back to field work days checking bird nests in flooded bottomland hardwood swamps with a long extending pole and mirror. :)

Side notes: I occasionally see a 3rd or 4th bird, presumably the recent fledglings, but I usually do not see any other collared doves around. A few days ago when it was snowing hard, the pair sat very close together in the backyard for over an hour, so I was pretty sure they didn't have eggs. Last week, two adults were sitting on the nest in the morning (next to one another on the nest) with a fledgling (based on the plumage and bill) sitting about a foot away. There are other singing males in the neighborhood and it makes me wonder if a lot of them are also nesting now. Interesting observations during an otherwise hohum winter for birds around here.

Scott Somershoe

Littleton CO

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