“Easter Morning”
Pencil & pastel
2026. ($150. Please email dterrydraw@aol.com or PM if interested in purchase)
Mourning doves remain, for various reasons (And after decades of feeding them), my favorite bird. I used to spread cracked-corn for them and, every morning, sit at the kitchen window while the resident hawks swooped in to slaughter them.
Twenty or so doves would gather around the corn. There would suddenly be a great blur…..and a crash of terrified doves hitting the big window. Once the initial turmoil and horror had subsided, I would see a big cloud of white-pigeon-fluff going up from the flagstones…..and it would all die down (this took about ten seconds). And there would be a big red hawk, who would glare at me for about a second before shrieking and plunging his beak down into the dove to retrieve the breast/heart (Which seemed to be all the hawks ever ate; they left the rest for the foxes).
The remaining doves would gather around the feed within fifteen minutes. One or another of the hawks would do their ruthless business again. This went on, every morning (for years), until 10 am or so.
Mourning doves are very beautiful, I think, but they don’t have the slightest capacity for learning a damn thing. They are ignernt animals.