Growing up: The Difference a Day Makes!

There've been a few things going on in my blog of late and the bulk of it has not been 'dove-centric'. Those of you who are coming here out of interest in the doves have patiently indulged my walk down nostalgia lane as I've chronicled some of the favorite things that adorn our Christmas tree (there's still a bit more to come). Thanks for indulging my non-dove side!

One of the things that you will have picked up on, between the blog and my Facebook page is that this fall's incredibly mild weather did a job on my doves. It's like they all thought it was Springtime, and are now caring for babies (unheard of in December).

Today I wanted to start a short series of posts entitled Growing up, looking at the growth of hatchlings - 'early childhood development' if you will.

For example, Did you know?  You can visibly see the difference between two hatchlings that are only a day apart. Take the two birds in this photo for example, their pinfeathers are coming in nicely and are most visible under their beaks, on their wings and along their backs. 

It's difficult to compare wings because the wing of the 10-day bird is hidden behing its younger nestmate. If you look just below their beaks, however, you can easily see that breast of the 10-day bird seems 'whiter'. If you look closely, you can see that the pinfeathers are longer on the older bird than on the younger. This is the difference that a day makes. Isn't it incredible? Who would think that a single 24hr period could render such a visible difference, but it does. You can also see a difference in the pinfeather length along the back of the two birds as well.

I want to share a little something more about this pair. If you've been following my blog, you will have seen a post back on December 11 where I mentioned having bought 2 pair of birds from fellow CRPU member Laslo Toth of Truro, Nova Scotia. One was a pair of older birds (banded 2009 - they recently gave me CU 11 13751 a.k.a. Tailor-made), and the other was a young pair, from this year (2011). It is this young pair that bore me these two hatchlings, so interestingly, both the parents AND their first chicks will all bear 2011 bands, meaning that... in terms of years, these two birds will be the same age as their parents. 

Check back in a couple of days to get a second glance at the process of Growing up.

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