Hi!

The broken bird is back!" I called out to Mom, upon hearing one note in the back yard.

Every mourning dove I've ever heard has a call that sounds like "HI...lo lo lo". Except one. And it returns every year to court in Mom's yard. "HI" is all it gets out. "HI". There it is again. (Where's the "lo.. lo.. lo.."? Cracks me up.) This has come to be a kind of alert to Spring returning (albeit January), akin to parents calling to their children, "Kids, kids! The robins are back!" (or the Far Side, "Kids, kids! The slugs are back!").

I make a great mourning dove call by tightly cupping my hands and blowing through a little opening. "HI.. lo lo lo." In their mating season, I can spot a bird up on a distant wire and lure it my direction.

I joked to Mom "in the voice of" a lovesick female mourning dove, "Ahh, he knows the whole song..." and she gave her own dreamy female dove response: "He knows the words..."

HI! The bird's back.