A little background first. So there's this thing now where people release doves at wedding. Most companies use white homing pigeons which can find home even if it's 100 miles away (or more - some racing pigeons can go 600 miles!). The pigeons (which technically are "rock doves") fly home and all is well in the world.
Some people use ringneck doves. Ringneck doves look a lot like homing pigeons except they are smaller. And a lot less expensive.
The problem with ringneck doves? They have never lived in the wild but instead have been bred in captivity for thousands of years. Because of this, their natural instincts are pretty low. They have almost no homing ability and can't find their way back even in the same town. They don't seem to understand predators and will walk right up to a cat or other animal. Ditto for cars and people. They also don't have a lot of ability to find food.
So if a ringneck dove is released at a wedding what happens to it? It dies. Nice start to a marriage, huh?
If you google you'll find many companies that use homing pigeons and almost all of them have a blurb talking about why you should not use ringneck doves. Unfortunately, people still are doing it. Maybe it's not companies, maybe it's people going to the petstore and not knowing better, I don't know.
So, long story short, my sister went grocery shopping and saw a white ringneck dove sitting outside the store. When she came out the bird was still sitting there and when she went up and picked it up, it didn't protest. She knew about the wedding release issue so she brought it home.
The problem there is that she has 3 cats so it's life expectancy wasn't much better in her house. So she called me. You know, the woman who was slightly traumatized by The Birds as a child and has said she'd never have a pet bird?
Well, we have a pet bird.
Say hi to Angel (the kids named her). We think she's a "her" because boys are a lot noiser and coo a lot while girls are quieter. The internet says ringneck doves are the easiest ones to keep and I see why. She is very tame, quiet and sweet. She doesn't peck and while she's a bit nervous she still lets us pet and hold her. We've read that they like social interaction with humans and we should talk to her and pet her a lot so we've been doing that.
That first picture is her on the curtain rod when we let her out to have a fly. She then got stuck behind the curtain (oops) and finally fell on the floor so I picked her up (pay no attention to that big blob of hair on my finger - I must have got it when I got her off the floor - you know, my immaculate floor you can eat off of?).
My mom got us a cage and all the supplies for a bird (thanks mom!). We're already trying to figure out how we can make her a bigger one though. Angel is eating well (seeds and some bits of broccoli and cantaloupe) and we've even heard her coo a tiny bit this morning which is soooooooo sweet to listen to.
But still, that's it with birds right? I guess the kildeer and the robin were to prepare me for Angel and that's it. No more birds! Right? Right?
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