Collared Dove

An early start for me today, as I had to take Chris to the station to get the train back to Sheffield. The weekend seemed to be over far too quickly, but unfortunately the weather prevented us from getting out as much as we would have liked. Still, it's only just over a month till I pick him up at the end of term, though then he's flying off to China almost immediately.

Later in the morning I took Alex and Ben over to our friend's house for our regular science session. Today we were investigating magnetism and electromagnetism. It was a good session, lot of laughs and we even managed to make a very simple electric motor, after several less than successful attempts.

Although I'd taken the camera, when I got home I realised I hadn't actually taken any photographs. When I'm busy with other people I tend to get too involved in whatever we're doing and don't take the time to stop and observe. I suppose that's why I mostly take wildlife and landscape photographs.

Although the light was fading by the time we arrived home I managed to get a few bird shots, including this collared dove which seemed to be investigating nesting sites in a large conifer near our house. We have quite a large population of collared doves, but they tend to be quite flighty as soon as they see a camera.

These small doves rapidly spread across Europe in the early half of the 20th century, and I actually remember noticing my first one when I was about eight. It's now one of our commonest garden birds and its monotonous trisyballic cooing is a familiar sound throughout the spring and summer.