Mourning Dove steals Robin nest / Fratricide / Again (1 Viewer)

[SevenFourSeven]

In southeast Pennsylvania. Robins have built a nest in the same place on our house every year for as long as we've been there. Last year, for the first time, after the robin had hatched three different sets of eggs, a mourning dove took over the nest and laid two eggs of her own. Both eggs hatched. The newly born doves were together for about a week. I took videos to see how they were progressing. After about a week I noticed one was missing. I found it right below the nest with a bloody wound on the back of its neck. My conclusion was because the nest was built for robins it was too small and the one decided it needed more space. I had looked for information on mourning doves taking over a robin nest or murdering their siblings but couldn't really find anything. So I just chalked it up to the perils of nature and moved on.

Now, of course, it's happening again. A robin just left her nest after it was vacated by the newborn. A mourning dove added a couple sticks here and there to make it her own and moved right in. And now all I can think of is am I really just going to sit back and let it happen all over again? I mean what else could I even do? I'm a believer in letting nature be nature but I can't help but keep thinking of that bloody wound on the back of the dead baby bird's neck and that it's about to happen again.

So am I doing something by doing nothing or do I do nothing knowing the something it could become?

 

[Tired]

Generally birds don't nest in areas that are too small. Dove nests are also not really larger than robin nests. I'd suspect something else killed the chick, maybe a squirrel or rat, not least as baby doves are rather lacking in the strength required to draw a serious amount of blood.

Technically the safest thing you could do for a nest of baby doves is to capture them, enlist an expert to raise them, and then keep them as pets. In the wild, they are going to die a violent death, likely from being eaten by something, rather than dying of old age as pets often do. Being in half-decent care in captivity is safer, in terms of life expectancy, than being in the wild. It is not, however, a legal, moral, or practical thing to do. All that to say: even if this were a problem of the nest being too small, which I very much doubt, they should still be left alone. I'm not sure what you could do, in any case, as disturbing the nest would probably mean it being abandoned. Though that's a very understandable urge.

Your dove babies have presumably gotten some growing in by now. How did that turn/how is it turning out?