Equal time: the Bird Spots YOU
Just to even things up, here’s what it feels like to be BIRD-WATCHED:
(Photo E.Shock)
This is “Hoover” the semi-tame wild African collared dove who inhabits our neighborhood, wondering why we don’t have a handful of peanuts NOW.
To indulge in a moment of natural history, notice how the eye is set in a slightly pinched or narrow part of the bird’s head. This enables both forward and rear vision, in addition to panoramic side-vision. This eye placement is typical of prey animals (the pursued) rather than predators (the pursuer), whose eyes tend to be placed for superior forward vision. Except for the beak (!), a dove’s head shape is very much like a rabbit’s. Without the big ears, of course, which would definitely be an aerodynamic liability.
For other Three Star Owl posts featuring Hoover, click here.
[…] Hoover, the semi-tame African Collared Dove who hangs out in our neighborhood, has been a bachelor for a while. But earlier this summer, we observed him in the company of a female dove who appeared to be a smallish Eurasian Collared Dove, a naturalized old world species that has become very numerous across the US. African Collared Doves are also non-native but less common; our Phoenix-area neighborhood just happens to sustain a small population probably descended from birds released in nearby Papago Park a couple decades ago. […]
[…] the water bucket on my work table, the finches and doves and cactus wrens forage around it, and Hoover the hand-tamed African Collared Dove, perched on it, hoo-ing, as he had all through the construction process. For him, landing on the […]