A Mourning Dove Murder Mystery

Four species of doves nest in my neighborhood – Mourning, White-winged, Inca, and Eurasian Collared doves. The most common nests are those of Mourning Doves. Last spring, a pair decided to build their flimsy stick nest on top of the porch light right outside my front door. They’ve tried this in years past, but usually my comings and goings eventually convince them to try elsewhere. But last years’ pair succeeded in finishing the nest and laying eggs. Once the eggs were laid, they stuck tight, and even my entering and leaving the house didn’t cause them to flush off of the nest.

After a couple of weeks, I started watching for the signs of hatching. One morning, as the dog and I returned from our morning walk, I noticed the dove and the nest were no longer on top of the porch light. Nesting material was scattered over the porch amidst feathers and fresh blood stains. One brand new hatchling lay dead and headless among the scattered nesting material. The other hatchling was still alive. No sign of the adults. Hopeful that the other parent might return, I gathered up the nest material and replaced it on the porch light and placed the hatchling carefully inside. I was at a loss as to what could have attacked the nest. There are a lot of semi-feral house cats in the area, but it would have been a flying leap for a cat to have grabbed the nest. I thought the overhang of the porch itself would prevent detection by any of the local raptors. But when I checked the nest later in the day, the predator had returned to finish the job: the nest was scattered over the porch again, and only half of the last hatchling remained.

The probable culprit appeared a couple of days later. I have a small basin of water that I keep along the side of my front yard, along an animal path that leads into an arroyo. It’s routinely used by coyotes, javelina, bunnies, and lots of birds. On this particular morning, I was eating breakfast in the kitchen which affords a good view of the water basin. Suddenly all of the doves and quail took flight, and even the bunnies took off in a hurry. I watched closely, expecting a coyote to appear over the arroyo’s edge. To my surprise, up popped the head of a Greater Roadrunner. It slowly turned its head from side to side as it scanned the area, then came up over the edge of the arroyo, passed by the water basin, and trotted down the driveway. It took at least 20 minutes for the birds and bunnies to return to the water dish.

It now made sense. A roadrunner would be more than capable of grabbing the Mourning Dove on the nest. Although their diet is mostly made up of lizards and snakes, there are many reports of them snatching birds at bird feeders. In spite of the carnage, I like roadrunners; their reptilian way of moving embodies a modern velociraptor in action.

I was reminded of last year’s dove incident when I heard a roadrunner calling in my front yard recently. Males will perch up in trees to issue a mournful mating call. I recorded the call, unfortunately also recording the distant sound of home construction in the neighborhood. The roadrunners call is so low in frequency that it overlapped the construction sounds so I couldn’t filter them out.