More Dove to Love

Top Ten Reasons You Should Love Mourning Doves

Part 2: The Final Five

If you remember from the little tease at the end of yesterday’s post, the main reason The Prude enjoys mourning doves so much is that they remind her of middle-aged woman-dom. Read our Top Five and see if you don’t agree.

REASON #5

She has a pear-shaped figure.

Middle-aged women gaze in the mirror in wonder at figures that have redistributed

themselves south, making the purchase of jeans a time of weeping and gnashing of teeth. If Mourning doves wore jeans, they would understand.

REASON #4

The pear shape leads to awkward body movements

It’s not only desire to clean up the area around the bird feeder that keeps mourning doves on the ground. The cute little songbirds can flutter and swoop and look adorable while landing in impossibly small places to peck away at their food. Our poor dove, once she has the ground tidied up, sighs deeply, looks around in hopes no one is watching, and hauls her ungainly pear-shaped form up to the bird feeder where she sits tottering as it rocks madly for and aft.

REASON #3

She has poor body image

How can she have anything else? She is  always hanging around feeders along with the chickadees and the sparrows and the cardinals. None of whom is pear-shaped.

REASON #2

In spite, or because, of the above, she dresses sensibly

She knows that shades of gray and taupe are slimming. She doesn’t accessorize much, hence she doesn’t call attention to ‘problem areas’. But she is always grateful when she is told that she has a pretty face.

REASON #1

She makes sure her husband holds her in high esteem.

She knows she can never compete with the petite chickadees or the elegant cardinals.

But she still makes sure that potential suitors court her with respectful bows.

And when the right one comes along, she lets him take an active part in sitting on the nest and parenting the children.

The mourning dove. She may not be the loveliest of birds, or even the brightest.

But she works hard and her husband loves her.

What a woman.

Dove Love

Years ago, The Prude dabbled at being a naturalist. This involved taking her coffee cup outside and observing the behavior of the birds socially networking at the feeder.

She even wrote stuff down about them, ala John James Audubon.

Her favorite birds were the mourning doves, and she took prodigious notes.

This morning she wanted to write a post on her favorite bird, and tore the house apart looking for the notes.

She remembers quite distinctly that they were genius notes. They were full of wisdom and keen observation and pithy comments.

She can’t find them anywhere.

So this morning we’re banking on The Prude’s memory, which has a reliability factor approaching that of an MP3 player purchased from the Dollar Store.

But The Prude has a great appreciation and respect and empathy for mourning doves and believes you should too.

TOP TEN REASONS YOU SHOULD LIKE MOURNING DOVES

Reason #10

Her name. You can’t go wrong with a name whose homonym leads one to believe she gets up early to take care of all her tasks, but actually means she sounds mournful because the world is such a naughty place that needs so much tidying and so many lectures. Listen to her sometime. That cooing? Those are the constant sighs of a Bird with Too Much On Her Mind.

REASON #9

Her work habits. Watch her at the bird feeder. She spends most of her time cleaning up the birdseed messes left behind by others. And sighing while she does it.

REASON #8

She won’t be bullied by blue jays and crows. The cute little songbirds all dash off nervously when the thugs show up. But the mourning dove calmly goes about her business. If she doesn’t keep things tidy, no one will.

REASON #7

She whistles while she travels. Listen to her on take-off. That whirring sound is the equivalent of The Prude singing along to the car radio while her children roll their eyes.

Note that you will never see adolescent doves flying alongside their moms.

REASON #6

She recycles. Her husband isn’t big into nest building, so she sensibly just moves in to nests other, fussier females have abandoned for bigger and more ostentatious nests.

Come back tomorrow when we round off the Top 10 with the self esteem issues mourning doves and middle-aged women share.