Mourning Doves

I glanced out the kitchen window this afternoon to find three mourning doves making themselves at home in a patch of sand beneath three hackberry trees and a yaupon. The sand was used to fill in a low spot where we once had dug a big hole to build a water garden. The rains came, the hole became a mud pit and we eventually decided we didn't want to tackle a water garden when so much else needed attention.

The sand helped fill in the hole and a low spot, and the birds have been making good use of it. These three took turns spreading their wings and lowering their bodies into the fine dust, then puffing up and sunning. I love the cry of the mourning dove, though I can respect my mother-in-law's annoyance with the dozens in her retirement park in Kerrville that never seem to shut up. I guess it is possible to have too much of a good thing, but here, I love the doves' cooing.