R.I.P Baby Dove

Yesterday I noticed that the baby dove was just about ready to fly away. It was no longer under the wing of it's mother. The two of them just sat side by side. But, I left the house for a couple of hours and evidently the rowdy neighbor kids, who had been over on our side of the fence begging to play ,had come back in the yard after we left. The gate was wide open, the planters were pushed aside and the baby bird was laying motionless on the concrete below it's nest. It was the saddest part of an already depressing day for me. Saddest by far, was the fact that when I went back to bury it in the yard, I heard that familiar mourning dove song. It was the mother and father perched on a telephone wire above my head. Neither of their eggs lived long enough to leave the nest. Hopefully they won't be scared of nesting there again in the future. We so love to watch them grow outside our window. From now on the gate is locked, I had been lax about it lately, but summer is coming and the poor senseless neighbor kids are wreaking havoc again.