education: Chet and Libby

Wet Libby, Chet intrigued.

Before you get your Chetfix, here's a message from Debby Kaspari:

On May 10 we lost our home and belongings to a massive tornado; in the past few weeks Mike and I have been astonished and humbled by the greatness of heart and generosity of this community, online and off. So many people have rallied to help us that words can’t begin to express the deep gratitude we feel as we heal from this disaster and begin to rebuild our lives. Our warmest thanks go to you, our friends, who have helped us by way of Julie’s wonderful blog. And a great big thank you (with hugs and kisses) to our dear friend, the amazing Julie Zickefoose. We are recovering and moving forward with purpose and joy.

Love to all from Debby and Mike Kaspari.

Zick here: If you've been meaning to but haven't gotten around to giving to the Tornado Relief Fund, see the right hand sidebar. You guys are the BEST. Thank you a million, on behalf of my dear friends. And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Doves, doves, doves. She's stuck on doves. And we dogfans are here, faithfully waiting for a Chetpost. Yes, he's made little cameos, but we need a big ol' Chetfix. All right. Here's your Bacon.

It's hard to teach a dove vigilance behavior against a dog who won't hurt her. Libby never bothered to be afraid of Chet Baker because she didn't need to be. She was no more afraid of him than she was of me, Bill or the kids. If I wanted to run a real orphaned bird boot camp, I could bring in spaniels, I suppose, who'd stare at them and rush them and scare the daylights out of them. With the work I put into these orphans, I can't risk having that kind of dog around. To live in our peaceable kingdom, Chet Baker must understand that birds are absolutely off-limits. And he does. He's the best boy.

Libby was hangin' out in her wide open flight tent, her halfway house, one fine hot day. She was thirsty, so she took a long, cool drink.

You can see that she's sucking water up. Most birds dip their mandibles, then tip their heads up to let the water run down their throats. Doves and pigeons are the only North American birds **capable of sucking liquids up into their bills. I'm not sure how they do it, but they just stick their bills in the water and vacuum it up.

**I'm thinking the Old World sand grouse can do this, too. Anyone?

Suddenly, she got a good idea. You can pretty much see when doves get an idea.

She would take a bath!

Her first bath, ever ever ever!

She had a creeper. Chet Baker was as intrigued with this new development as was your faithful blogger.

Libby soaked her belly, then decided to sun for awhile. I've seen wild mourning doves sun with one wing held high as they lie in our bird bath. I thought at first it might be defensive behavior directed toward Chet, but I think it had more to do with thermoregulation. She seemed to enjoy having a cool wet belly and a sun-warmed side.