Mourning Dove Drama question (1 Viewer)

[roomtobreathe]

Hi! I'm new.

I have a pair of mourning doves that nested a few days ago in my hanging plant on my porch. They are the same adults that had 6 babies in pairs of 2, on my porch last summer from June 2010-Oct 2010 and another pair of babies in February of this year. This morning when the male came to switch it was a different male and tonight after the original female came back to switch, 5 minutes later another dove, which looked like the original male flew into the nest with her. She didn't fight or move and the other dove flew out a few seconds later. Tonight she is still sitting on her eggs.

Like I said I am familiar with my original doves and how they nest, I haven't seen extra doves during nesting before. Can someone explain and will the eggs be ok and properly incubated?


Thanks!

 

[fugl]

Doesn’t sound to me that there’s much to worry about. Most years I have Mourning Doves nesting in my front porch & there’s often competition between several birds before things settle down with one pair firmly in control.

How is you’re so sure that this year’s pair is the same as last year’s?

 

[roomtobreathe]

Thanks for your opinion!

>How is you’re so sure that this year’s pair is the same as last year’s?

Long answer, probably more detail than you want.

I know this sounds weird, but their personalities, size, looks. Not just the regular markings. In the past after birds nested I got rid of the plant and was done, but last summer these doves didn't even give me time to get rid of the plant. I thought at first it was different doves. When I started looking for things to identify them with, I realized it was the same pair that laid a total of six eggs, in pairs of 2. They were great parents and loving birds to each other.

This February I watched them a lot because the plant is only a few feet outside of one of my rooms, almost like they are inside with me and they laid eggs during 12 degree and below temperatures. I was worried it would be too cold. But the parents were amazing. It was like watching a ballet show with their grace and perfect sync of switching with in a blink of an eye. The eggs never had a chance to get cold. My female has the longest, most graceful thin neck and my male is a little bigger and very handsome. They are a beautiful couple, with quiet sounds. They also have certain familiar behaviors with the way they play and where they land on my railing. But after their babies hatched and left the nest, they were back and so was a mysterious new male. He is bigger, fatter, paces fast back and forth on my railing, has a louder coo than the other pair of doves, a deeper voice and an extra white feather sticking out of the right side of his tail.. He kept trying to jump on the female of the other couple.

I think I solved my question from yesterday. The second male sat on the eggs during the day yesterday and the original male came back once the female was with her eggs. But everything was back to normal today. The correct birds were in the nest.

Today's question, can there be two males sitting on eggs, one at a time, on different days? Btw, the female doesn't like the second male. When he has tried to jump on top of her, she hit him with her wings or flew away.

Still waiting for the possibility of the birds being gone for just a moment longer, while switching, so we can get a quick picture of what is going on in the nest.

 

[roomtobreathe]

One other question-have you or anyone else who has had mourning doves nest, had trouble with crow attacks.

I had one, thankfully both adults and both babies made it out alive. I apologize to any crow lovers, but it was not a pretty sight seeing a huge crow on my porch railing an no birds in the nest, Luckily the babies were a day or 2 short of leaving the nest on their own, but hid on the floor of my porch and the parents found them and fed them.

 

[fugl]

Thanks for the detailed answer to my question. Made very interesting reading. I’ve very much enjoyed the doves nesting on my front porch over the years, though I haven’t been able to observe them as closely as you have yours & have no idea whether it's always been the same pair.

Two males, alternating on the same nest? Anything’s possible I suppose, but it’s certainly not normal (many species of birds have “helpers at the nest” but Mourning Doves usually not). One possibility in your case might be that the extra male has recently lost his own nest & mate & is still in “fathering” mode.

A number of my front-porch nests have been broken up by predators but I’ve never been able to positively identify the culprit or culprits. My best guess at this stage would be Western Scrub Jays (lots of these in the neighborhood). I get the occasional crow flying over but I have no reason to think crows are responsible.

Hope your Mourning Doves continue to thrive. I have no front-porch nest at the moment, but there's currently an active nest in my apple tree which I’ve been watching.

 

[roomtobreathe]

>but there's currently an active nest in my apple tree which I’ve been watching.

Any news?

 

[roomtobreathe]

I have a little update on my mourning dove situation, as well as a new question.

This post is still talking about the same mourning doves in my original post in this thread.

I'm sure now there were 2 males taking turns on different days sitting on the eggs. They both did a good job. The two eggs hatched about a week ago and both males have been taking turns on day shift feeding the babies. I finally got a look about 3 days old. This is the first time I've noticed my baby mourning doves not looking identical. Usually they look like twins except for a smidge difference in size. These babies, one was twice the size of the other. The big one is round and I swear looks like my extra male, not the original male mate of my female and the smaller bird looks like my male and like the other babies my original male and female have had in the past. Thinking it was my imagination since they were bony and needed more feathers and development, I thought maybe their looks would change. Now I've seen them at about a week with more feathers and they really do look like they have different feathers. Even the bigger baby's tale is short and stubby and the little baby's tale is long and thin. So this was my first issue I had never seen before...any thoughts...

Then this evening when my female made her nightly switch. She gets up to the nest starts feeding the babies and this tiny dove, looked like it was born this year and coloring is a male, flew on to my porch railing a few minutes later. She jumped on to the railing and started attacking it. Then they took the fight to my porch floor and she got very violent to this little mourning dove? She was hitting it with her wings and pecking at his wings and head. She was violent, I thought she was going to kill it. It had his wings over his head/face. Then she stopped, had a long feather in her mouth and flew up to the nest to continue feeding the babies. The little dove, I thought was dead or at least injured, but it was still breathing, started moving towards the end of the floor of the porch. I thought it would leave until it turned around and came back the other direction where the fight was. It stood there and cheeped, not even cooed. My female came down from the nest, attacked it some more until finally she and the little dove left the porch. A few minutes later, just she returned to the nest? Thanks for listening and any thoughts....

Ps. My female and her original male mate are usually gentle and terrific, faithful parents, that's why this behavior from my female freaked me out. If it were another kind of bird she was attacking or at least bigger, maybe I could understand. I watched a finch go in and out of the plant with her nest while she was sitting on eggs and she never flinched.