Your daily dose of cuteness

Mourning doves are so common around here that their coo is part of the background noise of the yard; the sound is nearly always there, as are the birds, foraging for spilled seed and occasionally bursting up from the ground in a panicked beating of wings. Today, though, brought a new sight: baby doves!

Technically, these two are probably adolescents, but they are definitely not full-grown and not nearly as skittish as the adults. Pulling dandelions this afternoon with my handy Grandpa's Weeder, a device that allows the pulling of tap-rooted weeds without bending, (much) yanking, or swearing, I noticed this little guy poking around among the physocarpus.

A few moments later, a second youthful Zenaida macroura revealed itself.

My suspicion is that these two are siblings who managed to hatch (I think the two broken eggs on the driveway and sidewalk this year were dove eggs--fortunately, mated pairs can have several clutches a year, and most clutches contain two eggs) and survive infancy--no guarantee given the sloppiness of dove nests and the presence of outdoor cats (not ours). As common as these doves are around here, I'm not sure that I ever noticed their young before. They resemble the adults but have a white cheek splotch where the adults have a black spot.

I'm not sure these two have quite mastered flying. As I kept tip-toeing around the planting areas attempting better photographs, they would do their cute little dove-walk and attempt to hide behind some piece of vegetation, but they never engaged in the classic dove eruption. 

If these cuties manage to survive, stay tuned for more pictures. Who wouldn't love that face?