Gotta love the dove





 

 

During my regular Wednesday afternoon shift volunteering at the California Wildlife Center, a woman brought in two nestling mourning doves. She said she’d brought in “two baby doves that the tree trimmers knocked out of their nest.”

She said that for two days the mother dove kept coming back to look for the babies, but the woman wouldn’t put nestlings back outside because she feared cats would eat them.

Upon examination at the center, one baby bird was already dead, the other in very poor condition.

I talked with Bruna, the CWC staffer who checked the birds in, and learned that the woman had had the babies since Monday and couldn’t find a phone number for a rehabber.

These baby birds were doomed when they weren’t fed during the first day she had them, and it was surprising that one was still alive two days later, having received no nourishment.

Correctly feeding tiny baby birds is a difficult and timeconsuming process. All of the baby birds in our baby care unit are fed many times during the day using syringes filled with special formula geared to their age and species.

What should you do if you find a baby bird?

Call the CWC hospital at (818) 591-9453 for expert advice. If the parents are still around, be sure to mention this when you call. You will probably be asked to text a photograph of the bird if possible. Do not feed the baby anything. Improper diets given to young growing animals can cause a multitude of metabolic problems, and feeding baby birds takes practice. Without training, it’s easy to injure a tiny bird.

When baby birds are ready to leave the nest, they “fledge” by hopping down to the ground, where they spend a couple of days honing their flight skills.

Birds learn to fly from the ground. If you observe a fully feathered bird on the ground and don’t see an obvious injury (drooping or dragging wing, torn feathers, etc.) you are probably looking at a fledgling. If the bird is in a safe area (no roaming cats or dogs or traffic) you can safely leave it alone. If it is near a street or sidewalk or in some other danger and you can catch it, gently place it in a bush or on a low tree branch. If in doubt, please call us.

Every year the California Wildlife Center cares for hundreds of baby birds and squirrels that have been orphaned because of tree trimmers. The best time to trim trees, both for the tree and baby wildlife, is during the winter. We are just into the second season for baby fox squirrels and already are caring for dozens of orphaned babies; while it’s possible for a baby to fall or be pushed from the nest, the most likely blame is from tree trimming.

Most native California birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which states that any known “active” nest cannot be disturbed until the babies have left the nest. Always inspect bushes and trees before trimming and look for bird and squirrel activity. Play it safe and trim in the late fall or early winter. Nesting season is usually complete by November.

Mourning doves, generally monogamous, are a year-round resident of California, and one of the most widespread and adaptable birds in North America. Doves are slimmer than pigeons, and are usually a soft gray to pinkish color with beautiful blue eyeliner.

Their plaintive coo-oo-wooo call gives the mourning dove its name. They are at home in open land with trees and shrubs for cover and nesting, and are frequent visitors to backyard bird feeders.

Doves usually lay two white eggs, which incubate for about 15 days. The young will fledge 11 to 15 days after hatching. The parents will reuse the nest for as many as five more sets of eggs in a single season.

Predators include cats, hawks, snakes and, of course, hunters.

It is estimated that hunters kill from 20 million to 70 million mourning doves each year. The mourning dove is a relative of the extinct passenger pigeon, which once numbered in the billions.

This article was submitted by the California Wildlife Center, a nonprofit animal care and rehabilitation organization. With a small staff and volunteer core, CWC cared for more than 4,500 animals in 2013. For information or to donate, visit www.cawildlife.org.


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