A family of mourning doves has been making regular appearances on my balcony. I’m not sure what’s attractive about last year’s dead planter foliage, but this is the second time I’ve seen a bird here.

I took the photo at right this morning, thinking it was just the one bird, when one of my cats did a very impressive vertical leap, scaring this bird and two friends off (for the time being).

I had tried more serious torment shortly after moving into this apartment, and had put a birdfeeder on the balcony. Talk about cat entertainment! But my downstairs neighbor(s) were not impressed, apparently not amused by having to do regular sweeps of bird doo-doo off their balconies!