Yesterday, as hubs and I were having lunch inside our motorhome, I was startled when this Mourning Dove flew towards the window beside me. She (he?) didn’t hit the window, thank goodness, and landed on the shed roof next door.

I didn’t have my phone tele lens handy, and I was afraid if I stood up to get it, the dove would fly away.

I used the native 2x zoom on my phone camera and was fairly pleased with the outcome, considering that the photo was taken through a window and also that I cropped it quite severely in post processing in order to get the close-up. I took it into Snapseed to try to recover some of the feather details I had lost through the tight crop, but could only do so much there.

I tried rendering the photo in black and white, but didn’t care for that outcome.

The bird flew towards the window one more time and hovered there for a split second before flying away. Had I been ready, what a wonderful photo that would have been! Re-reading that comment sort of reminds me of a “one that got away” fish story.

Mourning Doves are plentiful right now in South Texas. Their haunting coos echo throughout our RV park every day. They’re making me feel a little homesick, because once the weather warms up at home, we enjoy them in Saskatchewan too.

“While the mourning dove is often a symbol of sorrow and mourning, it symbolizes the same things as its white dove cousin. The mourning dove is, above all other symbolism, a spiritual messenger of peace, love, and faith,”

lovetoknow.com