Mourning dove

Yeah, they're making that sound with their wings.

This sound can freak out predators who want to eat them, or even warn their flock buddies.

They often hang out in large groups of mourning doves, sometimes more than a dozen.

And once they find a mate, they stick with that bird for life.

To see a bonded pair of mourning doves is to see love.

They'll preen each other.

That's when birds clean their feathers with their beaks.

Yeah, they're making that sound with their wings.

This sound can freak out predators who want to eat them, or even warn their flock buddies.

They often hang out in large groups of mourning doves, sometimes more than a dozen.

And once they find a mate, they stick with that bird for life.

To see a bonded pair of morning doves is to see love.

Through my front window, I could see everything without disturbing them.

Intrigued by the nesting habits of these graceful birds, I began researching all there was to know about mourning doves.

Where they got their name, which is from their soft, sad-sounding coos, how they make their cooing sound, they puff up their chest and send vibrations to their skin, where they stockpile seeds for later digestion, their crop, the purpose of the whistle-like sound of their wings, a warning to anything threatening their safety, the reason mourning doves are so successful at raising many broods of chicks, the strong bond formed by the mating pair, And throughout the month of May, I check the nest first thing every morning and throughout the day, so I wouldn't miss a moment of this miraculous process.

By early June, one squab, a baby morning dove, appeared.

Over a 10-day period, the hatchling grew quickly.

And if you're a fan of the show and want to keep it going, head to smartypass.org to subscribe.

We'll be back next week with a new Smash Boom Best episode, the American Robin versus the Morning Dove.

Bye.

Adios.

But, you know, then I just started writing some other songs and they, you know, the themes got more and more dark and it just became another Freddy Trujillo record, you know, but this time I thought it would be cool to just name the songs and somehow fit the bird into the stories, you know, like Canyon ran is about a father whose daughter went missing, but you know, he's now haunted by the Canyon ran.

And my morning dove was about a friend of mine who died of a heroin overdose and having to tell his parents, you know, and his parents, dad getting mad at me because I admitted the truth in front of his mom, you know? And, and, and so it's like me telling the dove or, you know, uh, mockingbirds about like, Growing up in L.A., you probably remember when they used to do the Melathon spray over the crop dust.

You know, I'd be up late sometimes, and I have a good memory of me and my dad sitting up late drinking some beers.

And, you know, it would be like 4 in the morning, and the Mockingbird started singing.

I mean, if we think about it, first musical instrument probably was our voices.

That's what a bird's doing.

yeah yeah as much as i could i tried it with some of the song birds that have a pretty good tune i tried to kind of do like a variation on on the theme you know like chickadee obviously is like they go they have a thing to go one of the tunes goes chickadee so i made the melody chickadee you know and then morning dove there's it's like yeah so the the flute melody and that's like you know it's like it's almost like you know i try to get that same minor thing going and so a lot of these birds you know obviously the crow doesn't have that melodic of a call but so i couldn't really do it with

that vocabulary though they can get some clicks in there you know when they're yeah some stuff going ravens too you know they don't kind of yeah i don't

They're... it's just, I, each film, like it, it, it, they all stand on their own, and they all could be part of different blocks, but this was just a very logical connecting thread.

Yeah, and in this block we have films like, uh, Bird's Nest: The Mourning Dove and the Cardinal.

That was at Queer West as well.

Okay.