Missing the Voice of the Turtle Dove

I’ve been missing my doves this summer. For the past three summers, there has been a pair of ringed turtle-doves nesting nearby. We often have mourning doves in the area, but when these showed up three summers ago, I was pleased with this lighter colored bird with a quite distinctive voice, kind of a rising and falling koo-kreee. I had wrongly identified it at first, thinking it was a white-winged dove, until I did some research and found that the white-winged dove’s habitat is in the west.

When the doves first appeared, it was during a particularly trying time. I was always pleased when I was outside and heard the dove’s call as she flew. I took heart when I would look up and see her perched up in the top of the cypress tree. The dove's presence was a cheerful reminder that its not dark yet. After that, two more summers came and heralded the arrival of the doves. This summer I have not seen or heard any sign of the doves.

We take what graces life offers. I was glad to have that pair of doves when they were here, but things change. Nothing can be forever the same, or life would grow stagnant. New graces appear along with new challenges. We take the bad with the good. I have much to be thankful for this summer. My response, then, is to live with gratitude and to look for life’s graces as they unfold with each new day.

Maybe one reason I had mistaken that dove for a white-winged dove was the riveting sound of Stevie Nicks’ song “Edge of Seventeen.” Music is certainly a gift and a grace, and that is one song that has delighted the airwaves ever since it hit the charts back in 1982.