Mourning Doves Nest
4/26/2026
Exciting news! A pair of Mourning Doves decided to make a nest near by! What makes it most exciting is that they made the nest in a spot that allows me a direct view! How unique!
I noticed they spent some time looking around the tree options last week and I spotted the nest in the afternoon on 4/24/26. I was telling my husband about it and showed him where it was a couple days later. Sure enough, we accidentally spooked the bird and saw there was an egg in there! We were initially unsure about what kind of bird it was that made the nest. Our curiosity got the best of us, so we decided it was time to do some digging!
I ended up discovering that Merlin Bird ID was a thing. :) It's an app that helps you identify birds that you see by sound or image. They also have a list with a picture example of each type of bird to reference as well. The app digs in a bit deeper and gives you a list of birds your likely to see based on your location as well, which is pretty cool. I was able to capture a couple nice pictures of one of the birds and uploaded the image to the app and it identified the bird as a Mourning Dove.
While looking up what kind of bird food to get for this specific bird, I found some other interesting information about them.
Mourning Doves usually stay in pairs and when they nest there is usually two eggs. So far, there is only one. I will continue to check and see if they lay another. I also read that the gestation period for Mourning Dove eggs is 12-15 days. That is also the same amount of time it takes from hatching for the chicks to start leaving the nest. I read due to such a short gestation and maturation periods, it's not uncommon for Mourning Birds to parent more than one batch of eggs in a season. So, we may end up seeing more than one batch of eggs! How exciting! Another thing I found interesting while reading about them is that once the Mourning Birds choose their mate, they stick together for at least the season, sometimes for longer or for life, and share the parenting responsibilities of the babies. I haven't seen both of them together since the egg appeared, but I also read that they take turns incubating the eggs. I hope I am able to get some pictures of the pair sometime in the near future! I also noted that they like to come back to the same spot or area in the following years if they liked their spot. It would be really cool to see them again next year. Hopefully, with me only taking pictures of them and the nest from a distance, they will want to come back again next year. It would be very cool if they parented another batch in the same spot this season! The goal is to watch without disturbing their space so they don't abandon the eggs or the nest altogether.
4/27/2026
I checked the nest this morning to find there are now two eggs!! This is so cool that I was able to catch all this in the moment. It just feels crazy that I am able to see the nest this close and that I know the specific days the eggs were laid! Definitely something that happened by chance!
Based on the days the eggs were laid, 4/26/26 and 4/27/26, they should be hatching between May 8 and May 11.
Stay tuned for updates on the parents and when the eggs hatch!
5/18/2026 - 5/22/2026
Unfortunately, these eggs ended up not being viable. These pictures are a progression of the eggs turning different colors and then the parents stopped trying to incubate them. They still linger around the nest, but have not pushed this other egg out. While doing a little research on them; I found out they either push the bad eggs out and reuse the nest to try again, or they abandon it altogether and make a new nest somewhere else. Not enough has happened with it yet to determine what they are doing.
5/24/2026
Most recent picture of that one remaining egg. Other birds have been messing poking around the nest and it looks like some of it was purposely opened. It's definitely interesting to see what it looked like inside.
