Columba Palumbus

For the last couple of months we have had the rare privilege of watching wood pigeons raise a brood. They chose a nest site in next door's bramble-covered tree. It was safe from cats climbing up. It was safe on three sides through thick vegetation. Also from above.

What the pair didn't know is that the solid wall providing protection on the fourth side but allowing access was not that but our utility room window. We rarely have a light on in there in the summer and it is one of the least used rooms in the house. Morning and evening laundry duties, where we keep the cleaning products, a second sink for dirty vegetables and the compost bins - er that's it.

But every time we have popped in there we have checked up on how the brood is going.

We have always got two or more wood pigeons in and around our garden and have watched them a lot. They are funny. Apart from eating, a breeding pair will spend all their time thinking (male) about sex or suggesting now is not the time (female). They have three bonks a year which gives three broods in roughly April, June and August. Each time a fresh nest is constructed.

In June we noticed one wood pigeon, we assume the female, sitting in the same place in the bush where the nest now is. You've probably seen these birds wandering around comically with twigs in their mouths during the summer. The nest-building methodology is simple. One birds sits where the nest will be and the other turns up with a variety of sticks which are thrust under the sitting bird until a platform is made.

Once the platform is sufficiently knitted together two eggs are laid (so the bird books tell me, I never saw them). From then on, for two to three weeks (again, so the books tell me) the couple take it in turns to brood the eggs while the other goes off to eat. Unless you see the actual moment of swapping over, which we didn't, you will not know which bird is brooding because male and female wood pigeon are identical. We suspect that the female stayed put for longer but that is based on what we know about the animal kingdom and maleness, not observation.

After a while we thought we saw movement but the chicks are kept under the parent's body for a long time after hatching. Then we saw a chick. Then we saw two.

We observed the rather disgusting habit of crop-feeding where regurgitated food is made available to a chick with its head half way down the parent's throat. This is, apparently, a very rich crop-milk that enables the chicks to put on weight quickly. When not feeding the chicks are nagging in the same way a small child always wants a biscuit. Again appearances can be deceptive but it felt that the chick nearest the adult bird got most of the food. That said the two chicks are now out of the nest and both look a similar size.

Towards the end of the time in the nest there was barely room for the two chicks side by side and when an adult bird turned up it had to perch nearby and lean in. Eventually the chicks wandered bravely along a branch and back. Then they reached the nearest bit of fence where they perched for a couple of days, preening and awaiting food which came less and less often. They they started appearing in different bits of the garden. If we get too close we scare the adults but the chicks don't know to be scared.  They also hopped from fence panel to fence panel and back, never further than another ten feet away, but did not fly in any obvious way.

I'd say they are now three-quarters of the size of an adult bird and are developing that lovely grey/pink plumage. They do not yet have the bluey green and white distinctive neck marking.

The two birds, perching side by side about ten feet from my gaze here in the conservatory are very patient (so it seems) and are not scared back into the nest. I have now seen them fly up on to the roof of a nearby house but they are content in and around our garden. We have cat scarers and the birds are usually out of sight of any passing sparrow hawk.

It has been a treat to watch this bit of development in the bird  world. I've often known wood pigeon were nesting in the garden because of the brooding noises but I've never been able to see the action close up. I'm not really interested in the effort required to make technology work but a time-lapse camera would have been an amazing thing.

The Church of England Pensions Board Property Department, if reading this, might note that the chicks, in the final photograph, are perched on the fence panel that has been broken for three years. Of course that is not the reason for this entire post.