Dove pushed her egg out of the nest! (1 Viewer)

[Slimmer_Kimmers]

First of all, hi everyone! I'm new to the forum.

We live on the second floor of an apartment and have a tree right next to our patio. We were delighted when we noticed a pair of mourning doves building a nest in our tree just a few feet from us. My kids and I watched for days as they built their nest. Well, today I peeked outside to take a look and noticed the mother pushing her egg to the edge of the nest. She made no attempts to save it and after a strong breeze came by it fell all the way down to the ground below and shattered. My kids were so upset! After checking the nest about an hour later, I noticed that neither the male nor female were in the nest. Before this all happened one of the parents would always be in the nest. Is this typical behavior for mourning doves?? Any info would be great! Thanks!

 

[Tero]

They can sense life inside the egg. Maybe it failed.

 

[Terry O'Nolley]

Hi Slimmer_Kimmers (LOL at your nick) and welcome to BirdForum!

Did you notice if there were more than one egg in the nest to begin with?

Do you remember what the egg looked like?

It is possible that the egg was "dead" and the parents got rid off it. It is also possible that the egg wasn't laid by the dove. There are species of birds that will lay an egg in another bird's nest.

Mourning Dove's are also fairly adept at recognizing and rejecting cowbird eggs ==> read more...

First image is a Mourning Dove egg, second shows a clutch of Brown-headed cowbird eggs.

 

[Slimmer_Kimmers]

Well, after the egg fell I ran down the stairs to examine it. It was a small white egg about an inch or so in length...granted it was difficult to tell since it was broken. After she pushed it out, she continued to sit in the nest so I thought that maybe she had another egg in there...but she has abandoned the nest completely now as I haven't seen her all day. So now I'm thinking there weren't any other eggs in there. Maybe she felt threatened by us on the patio. They did start building their nest during rainy weather. Now that the sun is back out over here, so are my kids. Maybe she felt we were a little too close for comfort. I'm not sure. The kids were just so bummed to find out there would be no baby bird. ||