Monogamy | Nesting | Care for Young

Nesting:

The male usually picks the nest site (Ecology and Management, 1993). He will choose different potential nesting locations and will call to the female; the final nesting site is the one that the female responds to positively (Ecology and Management). Doves appear to prefer riparian habitats for nesting terriroties (Meyers et al., 2006). To build the nest, the male picks up small twigs and pieces of nesting material and delivers them to the female by standing on her back and allowing her to place the material (Ecology and Management, 1993). Mourning doves nests are described as ‘loose platforms of twigs’ and are considered fairly flimsy (National Geographic, 2006). Nesting takes a few days and typically takes seven to ten hours to construct (Ecology and Management, 1993). Males will defend a nesting territory including the nest site, cooing perches, and potential nesting material (Ecology and Management). The males will defend this territory against other male Mourning doves as well as other avian species (Ecology and Management). Once the territory is better established, and as the eggs age, males will reduce the size of the defended territory and will be less likely to attack intruders (Ecology and Management). In addition, as the eggs age, the male spends less and less time with the female and more time feeding alone (Ecology and Management). In the past 50 years Mourning doves have decreased in number in many areas, and therefore nesting territories are much larger than in the past (Meyers et al., 2006).

Once the nest is built, the female broods over the eggs (Westmoreland, 1989, Ecology and Management, 1993). Nest predation is especially high for Mourning doves and because of this, they have evolved very short nesting periods (Camfield, 2004). There are three general responses to an intruder at the nest. They can fly away at high speed (flee), fly away slowly and close to the ground (a low-intensity display) or if flushed from the nest, adult Mourning doves will perform the ‘broken-wing feign’ (a high-intensity display) where they try to attract attention away from their young by feigning injury (Westmoreland, 1989, Ecology and Management, 1993). Some ethologists credit the haphazard broken-wing feign of the dove to ambivalent behavior (as in the doves are fighting urges to both flee and protect young), however, other researchers point out that in stressful situations, it is likely that doves will have more uncoordinated movements, thus making their feign look less coordinated (Ecology and Management). Parent doves tend to defend their nests more as offspring age (Westmoreland 1989).

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There are two common hypotheses for this phenomenon: first, the age-investment hypothesis, which states that as the fledglings age, parental investment increases and thus the cost of loss is higher (Westmoreland). This rests on three basic hypothesis: that (1), parents would have more difficulty nesting again the older the offspring get in the nesting season, (2), benefits increase while costs decrease, and (3), there becomes less of a difference in the expected survival of the offspring versus the adults (Westmoreland). The age-investment hypothesis is supported by work done with the red-winged blackbird, the eastern kingbird, and the great tit (Westmoreland). The other common hypothesis is the revisitation hypothesis, which says that increased nest defense is an artifact of repeated researcher disturbance (Westmoreland). This is supported by the fact that in American robins, red-winged blackbirds, and American goldfinches, repeated visitation of nests reinforces aggressive nest defense (Westmoreland). In 1989 Westmoreland visited Mourning dove nests over a 2 year period and found that neither the age-investment hypothesis or the revisitation hypothesis was supported. Therefore, it has not been determined why Mourning doves appear to defend their young more vigorously as they age.

In warm, dry spring seasons, doves tend to have more offspring than in cool wet spring seasons (Meyers et al., 2006). Otherwise, it can be difficult to determine the number of Mourning dove hatchlings in any given year due to the wide variety of habitats and differential level of game hunting of Mourning doves (Otis 2003). In 2003 Otis developed a good model of Mourning dove reproduction that takes the different habitats into account, creating a ‘spatial scale’ that helps to mold a more general algorithm to regional dove habitats. In this model,

P = (L/C)*F1