Baby Birds!

This morning the kids and I were playing outside in our driveway when I noticed the mourning dove wasn't in her next above our garage doors.  Her name is Maddie, by the way.  Carter wanted to name her and couldn't think of a girl's name so I suggested using a name of one of his friends.  Maddie is a girl in his preschool class.

Anyway, this was the first time the nest was without Maddie in a couple of weeks.  I didn't hear any noise coming from the nest so I wasn't sure if the eggs had hatched yet (I was assuming there were eggs up there).

So I got a ladder out and went up for a quick inspection.  And here is what I found.  Two itty-bitty birds.

Based on a little online research, I think these guys hatched in the last 12 hours.

Maddie didn't stay away for long.  I was on the ladder only a few seconds when I noticed her doing large loops around our driveway area.  The boys REALLY wanted to see the babies so I quickly took each up the ladder for a quick look and then we left the babies alone.

Once we backed up, Maddie came back to the arbor and hopped around it for a few minutes before settling back into her nest.  And she was there every time we checked the rest of the day.