Flying the nest...

At the end of last week a young pigeon was encouraged to fly the nest from under the eaves of our house...only to land on our first floor steps a few feet below. As you can see it seemed a little lost, but its mother kept a close eye on it from the roof above.

It hopped on to the vine and seemed to be getting the idea...

but the best it could do was to flap off the vine and land with a thud in the courtyard.

It then proceeded to wander about for the rest of the day making no attempt to get airborne.

Now, with the knowledge that our neighbour's cat would be over some time that day I decided to recruit his assistance. He came over and managed to get hold of it and he thought tossing it up in the air might just encourage it to fly but no, it again just came down with a thud on the top of our arbour.

David then said he had another idea and came back with something for it...

said they would go great with it!!!

...but have no fears, after a second day wandering around it managed to fly up to the top of a rose bush and with some encouragement from mum managed to hop on to the low roof at the front of the house and they were reunited.