Contemplating the bird in the basket

In a small straw basket hanging under an awning in the house across our driveway I see the white underbelly of a large bird, its tail extending far over the basket. It barely fits. It could be an orca.

This is the view from my desk looking over my laptop on which I'm supposed to be writing. I'm such a slow writer a friend once said I was writing posthumously.

The writing was already inching along at snail's pace when I saw the orca in the basket. Enter my bird-loving wife with binoculars. “It's a mourning dove sitting on her eggs. How great!”

Not when you're trying to write something to be published in your lifetime.

We put that basket up when we lived over there. A family of sparrows had taken up residence in our air conditioner. Hearing their symphony of peeps, we hung the basket. Soon Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow spawned an army of zipping offspring. (This was before Ganim slogged up the driveway looking for signatures.)

The bird-averse couple who bought the house wanted the basket gone. We cleaned it but left it. Abandoned paradise. Unlike some people, birds know when they're not wanted.

Now the basket has been inhabited illegally by a giant dove exercising her maternal instincts. To my chagrin my wife left her binoculars on my desk. I'm obsessed. First thing when I wake up I check the basket for squabs. Take it from dove-OCD me, that bird is doing God's work while I'm living in a state of anxiety. We might be parents again!

First week I wrote 800 words. Mickey Spillane is alleged to have written “I, the Jury,” in 10 days. Soon a grand jury might be convened to consider indicting me for fake writing.

By the end of the second week, I'd revised six times, started over, written 2,200 words. Ian Fleming wrote “Casino Royale” in two weeks, but who's comparing. Maybe there was no bird sitting on eggs in a basket outside his window.

Mourning doves can build a nest in two hours. Actually, they're faster than the lawn guys. The male stands behind the female and passes pine needles, twigs and grass over his wife's shoulder. She never says, “You're going too fast.”

Doves may raise up to six broods a year. Right now, I'm the one brooding. I can't get any work done. This bird is more disciplined than I am. Her babies are due in two weeks, then hatchlings will coo and two weeks later take off. Maybe then I can work. Or clean the lenses on the binoculars.

I emailed Hearst bird columnist Robert G. Miller. “I've never written about mourning doves,” he said, “but a quick check shows that they've adapted to humans, and use hanging pots and backyard baskets as nesting sites. Add them to birds that have learned to use human structures to their own advantage.”

Which raises the question: Why can't I adapt? That dove just sits there while I get up, go to the fridge, sit back down, write some words, think what a genius I am, take a break. No breaks, though, for the dove.

I don't need a calendar anymore. In four weeks, I watched a sacred life cycle — and my life flying by with that tell-tale whistling sound. Kazuo Ishiguro wrote “The Remains of the Day” in a month.

“Lucky you for having a ringside seat to a nest,” Mr. Miller said.

Really?

Frankly, that damn dove is really pissing me off. Opening the window to clean made a creaky racket and she never budged. Like I don't exist. What's with that bird?

That haunting and sad cooing sound you hear? That isn't a dove, that's me.

File photo A mourning dove in Georgia.

Houston Chronicle Mourning doves in Texas.