# Help I found a spotted dove (AUSTRALIA)



## Epiphany23 (Nov 20, 2013)

Hi everyone, 

I have joined here because I need help with a bird that I was told is a pest! BUT I found this bird yesterday, it was on the road, had clearly been knocked by a car but that wasn't the worst of it, a magpie had gone in for the kill and I had to rescue it, so anyway, I phoned WIRES, for some reason they told me this bird is a native? and they put me in touch with ,local WIRES who don't answer their phones, so anyway, doing some research and see this is a NON native bird? so obviously nobody is going to help.

I did what WIRES told me to do yesterday morning, kept this bird in a box overnight with water, went to release it this morning, bird looks happy and healthy enough, alert, no obvious injuries and its now been over 24 hours but he refuses to fly out of the box when I release him, gave him a little poke to encourage him but all he did was run to the other side of the box so I've brought him home again. Honestly this bird seems fine and if he had concussion should have been okay by now? he seems quite bright. Looks at me like an idiot when I try to give him seed or wet bread, will not even open his mouth, is he expecting me to chew this and spit it out? LOL, need help, do not want this bird to die of starvation now and maybe he's a juvenile and doesn't fly yet IDK.Thinking Juvenile because although WIRES ID's him by a photo that I sent them, he does not have the spots on his neck and they said spotted dove...assuming he hasn't grown spots? and TBH he seems smaller than doves I've seen.Sorry I was going to upload a pic here but I see that I need a URL...I don't have one.


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## kalel (Oct 14, 2008)

Hello there are a few members from Australia on here so hopefully they will respond and be more help. If its not flying maybe it has an injury to the wing especially if you think it has been hit by a car. You can post a pic by adding it to your profile on your user cp on here. Has he/she had any fluids or food yet? You may need to force feed but hopefully someone else with more experience will get back to you soon.


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## kunju (Mar 14, 2012)

If he is a baby, he would not know to feed himself. Does he squeak for food? 
If he is an adult, there could be some leg/wing injury, or perhaps he is a juvenile who has just started flying. A photo will help.
You need to scoop him up with a towel and hold him firmly inside the towel with just the head sticking out. Then open his beak and put in seeds/peas one by one. You can used thawed defrosted peas (split into half if too large for the bird's mouth). To give him water, you can dip the tip of his beak (take care not to dip the nostrils) into a bowl of water, and encourage him to drink.


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## tbmama (Jul 3, 2013)

hi epiphany, spotted doves are very common in australia and I've found the rescue places will not take them because they are not native and are considered an "introduced pest". I guess they have their hands full with rescuing native birds so won't spend the time rehabbing a non native species. 

I rehabbed a baby spotted dove and posted some info here to help others:
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f23/a-rescue-story-69413.html

The first thing you need to do is figure out what age he is and where he is at in his development. If there is nothing broken, and he is just injured but old enough to eat seed etc, you can rehab him quite easily (I've done this with another dove in the past) and it mainly involved cleaning the wound 2-3 times a day until it was healed and there was no infection. do you have a picture?


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