It began as an overcast day with the threat of rain. I put out some seed in anticipation of doves. Around 9,30am a young dove arrived and rushed around consuming the seed. The breast on this dove was dark. Mostly it is pink. I was not sure if this was a newcomer. He/she stayed long enough to eat about half the seed, alert and checking for sound all the time, then flew away.
Within minutes, three birds arrived. I have never seen three doves here at once. Two were small and young.
One was huge - and fat.
Although the three had arrived together, and began pecking the seed, the fat bird gently herded one of the young ones off the balcony
and then stayed as sentry while the other young bird fed. Eventually they left together as the wind got up and brought a little rain squall
The fat bird returned a while later. As I watched he became less puffy - and more familiar. I gently opened the door, opened the seed container and distributed more seed. He stayed, less than a metre from me, and began eating the seed. It was Turtle.
By now the wind was quite wild. The air was full of leaves and dust. He puffed up again and moved to a sheltered spot behind a pot plant, out of the wind. He sheltered here until there was a lull when he moved to the rail and took off.
I don't know what is going on here. I did a bit of reading. Puffing up/ putting on weight can indicate either illness or cold. While it wasn't particularly cold today, the wind was unusually strong for Adelaide. Storm damage was reported across Adelaide. Hopefully that explains it.
As for the 'mentoring' of at least one young bird, that Turtle seems to be doing, I can find no reference. Doves mate for life, so it seems unlikely he is trading Myrtle in for a younger model.I can find no reference to doves supporting their young in any way once they have fledged, so at the moment it remains a mystery.
I am becoming a dove obsessive - for which I apologise.
I tore myself away from my dove watching post to return to scanning photos. I had an idea that it might be easier to remove photos from the second 1970s album. Although it too had sticky pages it was not as substantial in either size or composition. I got a thin bladed butter knife and found I could, with great care, pry photos off the pages. It was slow work, but in about an hour and a half I managed to remove the 80 or so photos in the album. The trouble was, in my concentration I lost track of the time and was 13 minutes late for Pilates.
On my way home I stopped at Albox and bought another 10 sets of acid-free dividers. I am filing the scanned photos in acid-free photo boxes in decades, divided into either events or years and am chewing through dividers. Apparently most customers now want coloured dividers without tabs for labels. Their old stock is black, with tabs for labels, so they are happy to sell it to me.
I spent two and a half hours this afternoon scanning the removed photos through my new FastFoto Scanner. Only five of the removed photos would not go through the scanner - two because some of the album page had stuck to the back of the photo which was then too thick, and three because some of the back of the photo had lifted. I will put these through the flatbed. The other 75 went through in batches at 600dpi. It is better quality than I get from the App.
Tomorrow I will have another look at the big 1970s album to see if the butter knife will help me to remove the photos. s
I went to friends' place for dinner tonight. It was lovely to catch up, relax and share a meal. It's rejuvenating.
I did a bit of knitting but no embroidery. It seems I can't do everything!
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