Increasing local bird life by owning rabbits….

Beautiful tame midnight dove...

Is there anything more beautiful against the night sky...?

Now my point of owning rabbits was not to increase the bird life around our property, but subsequently it seems I have done just that.  Not only pukekos who have tripled in number around our place since keeping rabbits, but also doves have made their entry now.  The reason being is that the rabbit mix I feed my bunnies is a top quality mix full of seeds, pellets, all sorts of goodies not only liked by rabbits but also by the local bird life it seems!   Most especially pukekos and doves amongst the hundreds of sparrows, blackbirds and other wild birds that roam around our property. 

Unlike the humble New Zealand pukeko – a flighty bird by nature, doves in particular can become very tame very quickly – being of course of the pigeon family of birds, and they come right up at me while I am feeding my rabbits who are, of course, 90% of the time running around free in their large enclosure in the garden – this enclosure easily accessible to the doves and pukekos too.   Amongst other birds!

My rabbit food goes frequently down because not only are the rabbits eating it, it has become the main source of food for all sorts of birds  at our place; and the doves are my favourite. 

The other night I noticed a very tame dove and it let me handle it and I could stroke it without it flying away!  A once in a lifetime chance for me to get so close to these beautiful birds….but hopefully I will be able to more and more nowadays.

Pet doves are generally kept by people in special beautiful dove houses and they also love to nest in large trees.  As I am not an ‘official dove owner’ I have encouraged these birds merely of my own accord by owning rabbits – but saying that, I am happy for them to sit in the large trees we have where they seem quite happy and contented, constantly cooing quietly to themselves and eating my rabbit food offerings.   

Cats of course, are the most likely predator of doves, and my cats have not got used to the novelty of having doves around and are constantly scanning for them.  Mostly the doves I have accummulated stay around regardless of my cats because the lure of my special rabbit food mix is enough to keep them wanting to stay here. 

Since I started writing this….I’ve since updated today to say currently we have EIGHT doves hanging around now and, being the softie that I am, I have now started purchasing special dove food at the pet shop….not to mention I also picked up a few bags of wild bird food for the blackbirds and sparrows….well hey, if I am going to be keeping doves, I may as well attract all other kinds of bird life too!  They make for pretty relaxing watching and the way they sit on the gate and fence next to the sheep waiting for me to feed them is something else….

Generally associated with ‘peace’ – most especially in the Christian religion – the Dove is by far a beautiful and melodic bird who makes a nice natural addition to my already-large animal and bird family.