My dear friend Pica will tell you--gently, regretfully--that I am no naturalist. I don't know a cow from a crow, and don't care.
BUT
my brother gave me a bird-feeder for Christmas, which I installed in my yard about a month ago, right outside my sliding-glass front door. (The TC is basically a chicken coop, remember.) After a day or two, a pair of doves (what kind? I don't know) who live in a tree next door came over to check out the groceries. All I had to do to scare them off, though, was to walk past the closed door, on the inside; they'd immediately take fright, do the flutter-rattle thing, and fly away.
Last week, though, I could sit on the couch and look at them with the door closed, and they'd stick around.
Today, the door was open, they were out there, and I sat on the floor right next to the door, and watched them. And they didn't fly away! They both just looked at me, about 8 feet away, like "YOU here? . . . OK."
And they didn't fly away till the phone rang. Boy is the LOML going to be surprised when he gets back. He loves birds.
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