I opened the coffee, it looked good, it smelled good, it was perfectly dry – it was fine – not dusty, tasting just as it should – so a good bargain – for a ‘tight’ frugal person!
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There must be a pair of Collared Doves nesting somewhere around – they may have taken over a pigeon nest on the sycamore tree next door – as I keep seeing one on the fence and two on the roof ridge of the house behind me.
The photo is through the window as they are quite shy birds so no good trying to go outside to photograph.
They are so common now that it seems strange to think they didn’t breed in Britain until 1955 when they were found breeding in Norfolk after spreading into Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. They originate from India, reaching Turkey in the sixteenth century and by 2000 there were 284,000 breeding areas in Britain.
They are smaller and neater than the more common wood pigeons with creamy/pink/grey colouring, young birds don’t have the collar markings. Their nests are much the same as pigeons – a bundle of twigs in a tree, hedge or on guttering or any ledge. If enough food is available they can breed almost all year round – and like other pigeons can have 5 broods a year.
In my book of Bird Poems there is a poem called collared doves that isn’t really about the birds at all.
Listening to Collared Doves
I am homesick now for middle age, as then
For youth. For youth is our homeland: we were born
And lived there long, though afterwards moved on
From state to state, too slowly acclimatising
Perhaps and never fluent, through surprising
Countries, in any language but one.
This mourning now for middle age, no more
For youth, confirms me old as not before.
Age round the world, they say, to childhood’s far
But what now (strength apart) I miss the most
Is now unseen like air, since everywhere.
And yet, when in the month and in the skies
That were the Cuckoos’ and in the nearer trees
That were the deep voiced wood-pigeons’, it is
Instead now the collared doves that call and call
(Their three flat notes growing traditional)
I think we live long enough, listening to these.
I draw my line out from their simple curve
And say, our natural span may be enough;
And think of one I knew and her long life;
And how the climate changed and how the sign-
Posts changed, defaced, from her Victorian
Childhood and youth, through out country of grief;
And how she adapted as she could, not one
By nature adaptable, bred puritan
(Though quick to be pleased and having still her own
Lightness of heart). She died twenty years ago,
Aged, of life – it seems , all she could do
Having done, all the change that she could know having known.
E.L. Scovell (1907 -1999)
Edith Scovell was an English poet and translator who published 3 volumes of poetry. Her poetry was admired by Vita Sackville West and Phillip Larkin (according to wiki). Collared Doves was published in 1968.
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Sue
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