I found the first mourning dove nest of the season about five weeks ago. Two white eggs sat cradled in a platform of twigs placed on top of a stack of crates just inside the door of a shed. It seemed like a perfect location completely protected from rain and wind.
Dove nests are typically flimsy platforms of twigs in evergreen and deciduous trees along forest edges, fence rows and even in backyards. This is the first one I've found inside a building.
A few days later the eggs were gone. Many suspects came to mind: blue jays, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, opossums. The nest was undisturbed, and I found no fragments of egg shells nearby. Then I noticed a large black rat snake resting just beneath the sun-warmed roof. I could just barely detect two egg-shaped bulges along the snake's body.
It was just a bump in the road for the doves.
Though they lay only two eggs per clutch, they typically raise three or four broods per year in western Pennsylvania.
Mourning doves pair for the season and take turns incubating their two white eggs for 14 days. Typically the female tends the nest from dusk to dawn, and the male incubates during the day.
Though adult doves eat seeds exclusively, nestlings need protein. Adult doves meet this requirement by producing "pigeon's milk" -- a pale, milky liquid formed in the crop. Pigeon's milk is a nutritious fluid of fat and protein, ideal for rapidly growing nestlings.
Several times each day the young induce their parents to regurgitate a helping of pigeon's milk by reaching into the parent's mouth to feed. During the second half of the nestling period, adult doves feed their young increasing amounts of seeds.
Young doves leave the nest at about two weeks of age. Meanwhile, the parents have already begun another family. By producing a series of consecutive nests, doves can counter predation and multiply rapidly. The result of several two-egg clutches can match the output of species that raise just one large brood each year.
By Scott Shalaway
Source: Post Gazette
