Once again I have to dip into the vast pool of knowledge of APS people.
Can anyone ID these birds? They started hanging around the building a month or so ago, and I believe the male was drumming for a mate on the raingutters before that, in late April, but the bill on this guy now seems shorter than I remember from the "drummer." They're pretty bold around people, and one of them swooped at me while I was taking some other very bad pix of them from about thirty feet away.
They've become sort of building pets and apparently built a nest under a Juniper bush by the sidewalk. Both of them just walked around down there on the ground by the bush as people walked by within two feet of them. Somebody (not me) put some kind of bird feed down on the ground near their Juniper bush.
They make a beating, whistling sound when they take off but I don't know whether the whistling is a vocalization or from their wings.
These guys were within six feet of me when I hurriedly took this picture and I don't think the camera knew what to focus on and didn't have the time to autostabilize, but it is the best of three I took. I "autobalanced" the picture with MS photo editor to improve it a little.
One of them was perched on my open screen door and I didn't realize it when I exited and s/he took off with that loud whistling sound and wingbeat and startled me. Of course, I startled the bird just as much.
Anyhow, if any ornith-ey people out there can ID them, it would be appreciated. They sorta look like pigeons, but they sorta don't, either, and they're quite a bit smaller.
Location: Golden Co, Date: 05 Jun 12.
Terry, 230RN