A wonderful welcome home
Peaceful Dove, Cleland Wildlife Park
We’ve been away visiting family in Sydney for the last few weeks. It was lovely to play with my 2.5 year old grandson. Over the coming few weeks I’ll be writing more about the birds I saw there and on the drive over and back. We covered 2910km by car over 5 days, so I’ve lots to share. Stay tuned.
On the morning after arriving home I took out a basket of washing to hang on the clothes line. Quite close to our back veranda I disturbed a Peaceful Dove feeding on the ground. This was the closest to the house I’ve observed this species. It was a wonderful – and peaceful – welcome home. The bird flew off a short distance and landed in a nearby tree. It sat there for a few moments, giving its soft peaceful “doodle-doo” call. Love that.
While this species is widespread in our district we don’t always have it present in our garden. At best it is an occasional visitor. Pity about that; I’d love to have it here all the time.
Good birding.
It obviously called in specially to welcome you home!
And you are welcome to call in any time too, John.
What a sweet-looking bird! We have a pair of Mourning doves living in our neighborhood for the first time. I love hearing their hoo-hoooo when I wake up in the morning.
Hi Susan, doves and pigeons can be quite soothing when they are calling in the garden. Our Spotted Turtledoves (an introduced species) are lovely too – except when they go on calling and calling for hours on end. It can result in a human brain snap! LOL
I have a pair of turtle doves in my back garden which are similar to the peaceful dove but they have the spotted neck – they seem to have been around for 20 years!! is this possible?
They are a delight and often come down to poke around on the grass when I’m having breakfast in the back-garden – but very timid with the prettiest faces.
“Adelaide and Beyond”
Hi there Diane,
Thanks for visiting and for leaving your comments. The Spotted Turtledove is a common introduced species in the Adelaide region – and throughout many parts of our state. Not sure about the life span of them though. It could be that you’ve had several generations of doves living in your garden.
BTW – I had a look at your site – beautiful photos. It has inspired me to get out more and photograph our beautiful state. I have a travel site too where I post photos of SA and other parts of this beautiful land of ours.
http://www.trevorstravels.com/