Baby Dove Dies In Nest
by Denise Gray
(Menifee, CA USA)
We have a sconce hanging on one of our pillars in our front yard. A pair of Mourning Doves have commandeered it for their nesting sight, much to our delight!
We love watching the parents sitting on the eggs and we've already seen the first set of two hatchlings grow in the nest. We (my husband and 2 sons and I) were even able to witness the hatchlings' first flight! Both of them!
It was very exciting to see the mom (we think) cooing and calling to her babies to fly, then the bolder hatchling stood up, jumped out and away he went!
He flew in a half circle and landed on our fence and there he sat for quite some time. The other hatchling sat in the nest for so long that mom and dad were nowhere to be seen when he finally flew out.
The poor thing flew right into my neighbor's window and crash landed on his roof. He sat there for a while, recuperating. I don't know what happened to him, but I'm sure mom and dad handled everything!
Anyway, that brings me to my real story. The pair has laid 2 more eggs and the eggs have already hatched. For a few days we only saw one hatchling, but then 2 days ago we saw the 2nd one.
Yesterday the 2nd hatchling was sitting in the front of the nest and I got a real good look at it and was absolutely heartbroken. It was the most pitiful sight I've seen.
The poor thing had a tumor the size of a .25 cent gumball on it's neck, causing his head to tilt at a very unnatural angle, AND it didn't have an eye on the left side of his face! I wanted to help it, but it was obvious that the only thing that I could do would be to put it out of it's misery.
I couldn't bring myself to do anything and I just left the poor thing alone and let nature take it's course. It's breathing was very labored, it's whole body heaving with the effort and I could tell it wouldn't be long.
At the time, one of the parents was in the nest with both hatchlings, but a few hours later neither parent was in sight.
This is my dilemma: I think the parents have abandoned the nest because the sick hatchling has died, but there is still one healthy hatchling in the nest.
What should I do? The parents haven't been seen in the nest since yesterday and I don't know if I should take the dead chick out and hope the parents come back, or if I should just not do anything and let nature take it's course, or if I should feed the other chick so it can live?
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions or anything? I don't know what to do and I could really use some advice!
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