Mourning Doves Nesting

See our video shot over the span of a month during the Spring of 2018 documenting a pair of Mourning Doves who built a nest in one of our hanging baskets in our backyard. This is our Meet Your Neighbor program sponsored by United Supermarkets. 3/23/18 Nest built and eggs laid 3/26/18 Camera set up 3/27/18 Light afternoon rain falls on the nest as the male bird appears to really protect the eggs from the rain. Observed first parental shift change this evening on incubating the eggs from father to mother 3/28/18 First morning parental shift change on incubating the eggs filmed from mother to father. 3/28/18 As both parents were in the nest a Eurasian Collared Dove flew into it and ran them both off. A few minutes later one of the parents luckily returned. 3/28/18 Observed parental shift change on incubating eggs during the evening hours. 3/29/18 Eurasian Collared Dove attacked the nest again forcing the smaller male mourning dove to flee but a few minutes later the father returned. 3/30/18 Female mourning dove left the nest and then returned a few minutes later during the morning hours. A few minutes later the male brings nesting material and the female works on the nest. You can see the female peck at the male also which is interesting. An hour later observed shift change incubating the eggs as the male takes over for the female 4/1/18 Evening shift change from male to female 4/2/18 During the morning shift change and observed that one of the eggs maybe broken. 4/5/18 The morning shift change revealed that there was only one egg left in the nest. 4/7/18 Evening shift change between male and female. 4/8/18 Morning shift change and the female dove got up to reveal a broken egg and a new hatchling mourning dove. You can see the male dove removing the egg shell pieces from the nest and flying them away. You can also see the male dove feed the hatchling. The egg took 16 days from the time it was laid to hatch. 4/9-13/18 You can see the parent mourning doves feed the crop milk to a growing hatchling 4/15/18 Around 11pm Sunday night the female mourning dove leaves the nest and doesn’t return until 7am the next morning but the youngster survived the chilly night alone just fine. 4/16/18 You can see the morning shift change on the nest with the male mourning dove feeding the hatchling. 4/18/18 Lots of action in the nest now as the hatchling is beginning to walk and stretch and test out its wings. The mourning dove parents are coming and going more often and sometimes are both in the nest and both gone for extended periods of time. You can see marked growth in the baby which makes it an awkward sight when the parents do try to nest on it. 4/20/18 During a windy and stormy day the new Mourning Dove flew from the nest and unfortunately our camera did not capture the event. The fledgling never returned to the nest even though the parents returned several more times throughout the day.