The fledgeling

The egg hatched some days, even weeks, ago. The mother bird continued to sit on the nest. We wondered if the baby or babies were still alive then one day the mother was gone and a huge brown fledgeling sat silently in the nest. We thought it was a cuckoo. But this week the bird in the nest shed its brown feathers and began to take on the same colour plumage as the parent colared doves.

One day I saw the mother dove sitting on the nest with her offspring's head peeking out from underneath her. I did not have time to get that shot. Then yesterday the parent birds adjourned to the top of the lampost as they did earlier in the year. The fledgeling is still being fed, we see the parents visiting and even hear the adolescent cheeping from time to time, but they are obviously encouraging him/her to try wings and fly the nest