# Nestlings murdered, but by whom?



## hrvatski (Jun 9, 2007)

I've been watching some pigeons for the past few weeks outside my window. A couple of days ago the babies hatched and the parents spent a few more days sitting on them, but then they started to come and go as they pleased. This morning I woke up to find that both the nestlings were dead about a meter away from the nest. No cat could have possibly gotten to them, so could this have been another pigeon or another species?


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

This is just my opinion but I think that the parents were responsible for the deaths . There should have been a parent bird sitting on them all the time at that age. Perhaps there was something wrong with the young ones to begin with. The parents would also have removed the dead babies from the nest.

A few years ago I found a squeaker dead at the side of the road and blamed a motorist. I picked the body up , noted that rigor mortis had set in and happened to look up to the vent where I knew the nest was. Both parent birds were looking down at me and it struck me immediately that they looked guilty. I realised that to end up where it did the chick would have to have fallen straight down from the nest and for that to happen it would have had to be dead when it fell.

Cynthia


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

A Jay or Crow could also be the culprit.


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## hrvatski (Jun 9, 2007)

I live in Poland so I don't think we have Jays or Crows, but I'm sure that there are some other nasty characters around here. There are some suspicious magpies which make a typewriter like sound and they are my biggest suspect. However I suppose it is possible that the one of the parents flipped out and committed pigeocide.


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

Were the nestlings fully intact when you found them dead? 

fp


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## Larry_Cologne (Jul 6, 2004)

*re dead chicks killed by parents?*

Hello Hrvatski,

The first pair of chicks from my male pigeon Wieteke and his feral mate Mamieke died a couple of days after birth, less than a day apart.

Bodies were intact. Abdomen of first chick was black and slightly swollen. Mom had been sitting on it for a while before Wieteke took his turn on the nest, and I dared to look and see why he was so sorrowful. (Thought maybe they died from salmonellosis, or paratyphoid. Don't know for sure).

Second chick died a short while later. Wieteke got busy, paired with Mamieke, started another nest in a diferent but nearby location.

I have seen on a couple of occasions that pigeons will alternate nest sites, if they have more than one site available to them. (Specifically, with some feral pigeons across the street, from one corner of a window to the other corner; with Wieteke, from one clothes wardrobe to another). 

Once saw a dead chick across the street, in the same nest, with the nest site abandoned for a month or so. Saw flies buzzing around the nest, and something chick-shaped there. 

If good nesting sites are not readily available, parent smaty ge rid of corpses, or may just leave the remains embedded in the sticks and remains of older nests. 

We humans do the same things: a house may stay in the family for generations, or be utilized by others. we even recycle mausloeum and burial chambers when necessary. 

Keeping an obviously sick chick alive, and letting him grow up to be a non-flying, dependent pigeon, perhaps full of pain, and attracting the attention of predators, isn't practical for bird parents.

Larry


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## hrvatski (Jun 9, 2007)

I could only see the chicks from a distance, though it did look like they might have been pecked at a little. It's hard to say because flies had already gotten to them and were making a mess of everything and my view is from 4 meters away.

I know very little about pigeons, but the day before the chicks died some brown pigeons landed near the nest and the guy got off the chicks and started to do a mating dance for the ladies, who were certainly not his partner.

Do pigeons change partners within the same season?


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## Lin Hansen (Jan 9, 2004)

Hi Hrvatski,

I can't give you a definite answer on this one...it's hard to know exactly what happened.

I had my own mystery a couple of years ago when I found a dead baby pigeon approx. 9 days old on the windsheild of my vehicle. I was parked in an open driveway so there was no way it could have fallen from a nest. There was a very small laceration on one side of the body. I can only assume a bird of some type snatched it and while flying away, dropped it.

Pigeons usually stay with their own mates, but it seems that they are not adverse to "flirting" with others who happen by.

Linda


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