An Ornithological Curiosity
by John Weckerle
Dozens of doves!
It’s been an interesting autumn bird-wise this year, primarily due to an unanticipated and unexplained shift in the bird population. In all our previous years at this location, Fall has brought numerous robins with a healthy mix of flickers and other migrants to our neighborhood. At any given time, the number of white-winged doves topped out at three or four. For several weeks this year, however, we were visited by much greater numbers of doves, but have no idea why. These doves are clearly travelling together as a flock; they do not break up and fly off into pairs or smaller groups. We counted at least fifty of them in the photo above, taken October 11, 2011.