Enticing

One of our near neighbours has a dovecote - and I don’t mean one of those white, hexagonal affairs on a stick. His is a large, circular, building of blue lias stone, with a stone tiled roof, dating back several hundred years to the time when doves were kept for food. These days I doubt that many people in this country would eat them, or their eggs, and I don’t really know why anyone keeps them at all - for show, I suppose, or personal amusement - but someone round here has white doves, and I’m guessing it’s the dovecote owner because the flipping things are almost constantly in our garden, scoffing our wild bird food.

Over time the white doves have interbred with other birds - feral pigeons would be the likeliest candidates, as both are descended from the rock dove, Columba livia - and have produced some very odd-looking offspring. This one is especially baroque, but sitting in the bird bath this morning with a come-hither look on, she was energetically courted by first a wood pigeon and then a stock dove, so it’s not impossible that more weird hybrids may be on their way quite soon. The amorous wood pigeon was chased off by the stock dove, who was rewarded with a bit of canoodling by the piebald female. She then left the water and sat nearby, while the stock dove displayed to her from the bird bath, which is the scene captured in tonight’s second photo.