Our Fifth Dove Chick This Year !

by Olivia
(Canada)

We have had a female dove nesting in the same hanging flower basket on the porch for the past three years.

This year however, she has returned on three separate occasions and built her nest to hatch two doves chicks (I am assuming that the dove is the same female bird returning each year)

Only this last time she laid her two eggs as usual, but I noticed early one morning, one empty shell on the porch floor just below the nest.

Needless to say, the female dove did her duty and hatched the remaining egg in the nest. All is well and the little chick is growing like a weed......until yesterday and I noticed the mother dove was nowhere to be seen.

Today, I checked again and dove male or female are not visiting the nest and the chick sits there waiting quietly, unaware that it has been abandoned.

I have read up on what I should do and realize, as sad as it sounds, there is NOTHING that I can do. I would do more harm to the chick, if I were to attempt to rear it myself.

So, I shall have to wait and hope that this female dove returns, so that I can see this fifth little miracle grow strong and fly away along side its mother.