Wonder amongst the weeds.

I've been a little preoccupied with pigeons of late. The thing is you see having seen a really spectacular rare dove, I realised I hadn't shared all our common ones with you. Hence the zenaida dove the other week and now this (there are others to come too):

This is one of my favourite birds here. Its a ground dove and it is absolutely tiny. Although they share that classic pigeon/dove shape they are absolutely tiny, sparrow sized almost, a fact which makes them irresistibly cute. As the name suggests these guys spend the bulk of their time on the deck and what with being so small and being amongst the weeds they are easy to overlook. Hence they do have a tendency to scare the daylights out of you during a walk from time to time. The wings on these are a beautiful red when they fly to so the result of one of these bursting up from your feet is rather impressive.