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Welcome to DoveCam!! 
Status
Report: To learn
more about Mourning Doves, visit these links: To see videos of a baby dove hatching and getting its first meal (from last season), click here. To see a gallery of photos (the Best of DoveCam), click here. UPDATES: December 31, 2003: DoveCam has been permanently shutdown. The house where the doves' nest and the Kinetic Horizons studio were located has been sold. It seems the doves outlasted us. Check back in a few months, there's an outside chance there'll be a FeederCam or SunriseCam or something else from the new studio. August 7, 2003: Both chicks fledged this morning. July 29, 2003: More chicks in the nest! And monsoon rains are here. July 8, 2003: Last brood of chicks fledged on the same day a couple of days early. It's gonna be 112 degrees F here tomorrow, they should find some shade! The parents have been visiting the nest in the morning, so another clutch may be on the way. June 11, 2003: Two new eggs in the nest! And it's cooler this week--in the 90s. June 4, 2003: Two more doves fledged on the 2nd! Awaiting more eggs. May 22, 2003: Two new chicks in the nest! May 7, 2003: The first brood of chicks this year have fledged successfully and there are new eggs in the nest! April 16, 2003: Another season for DoveCam! There has been a bird on the nest for about two weeks, so chicks should be along soon--I'll refine the chronology in the summary when that happens. September 12, 2002: There has been no new activity around the nest in a couple of weeks. It appears the breeding season may be over for this year. The weather has been unsettled the last week or two. We have removed the old nest from the platform and shut down DoveCam for the season. If there are signs of new activity we'll reactivate it. If not, check back in the early spring next year to see if the doves return for another year. August 25, 2002: The surviving chick from the last brood fledged on August 18th (late). The parent birds have been visiting the nest the past couple of days, so there may be another clutch coming. August 8, 2002: One of the chicks has died in the nest. Late this afternoon during feeding time, we noticed only one chick was feeding. The other was motionless beside the first. One of the parent birds has been pecking at it for sometime and it is obviously dead. We reviewed recent stored photos and the chick was definitley alive the evening of August 6th. It's difficult to tell after that, but we didn't see any obvious trouble (like a predator). July 21, 2002: After the last brood fledged, the monsoon season began with a few windy days. The nest is a lot higher than before--either from wind rearranging it or the doves adding significantly more material to it. New eggs in the nest. June 27, 2002: Two recently-hatched chicks are in the nest. And it's hot here--106 degrees F today. June 10, 2002: Both chicks fledged yesterday afternoon; parent birds already remodeling the nest for the next clutch. May 5,2002: Both chicks fledged this morning. April 22, 2002: Chicks hatched! April
13, 2002: Two more eggs in the nest; second clutch of the year. March 10, 2002: We had a flycatcher spend the evenings on a beam near the nest platform most of the winter. Mourning doves began hanging around the platform in mid-February, and built a fast nest. One dove seen on the nest periodically for a day or two and then an egg seen in the nest on February 26th, with a second egg seen in the nest the following day. The doves have been incubating since then. The weather has been mild and we expect the first chick of this year to hatch on Tuesday, March 12th. October 15, 2001: There has been no new activity on the nest (except for a visiting roadrunner) since the last brood fledged on September 21. The breeding season for mourning doves typically ends in late-September or early-October. We have discontinued regular operation of DoveCam until we see new activity (breeding season typically begins in March). We are also exploring adding a "FeederCam" in the meantime; so check back. September 21: The two chicks from the latest clutch fledged on September 13th, right on schedule. It is late in the breeding season for Mourning Doves, but we'll keep watching. August 14, 2001: The doves have returned to the platform and have begun building a new nest. DoveCam is active again. July 31, 2001: After the last brood of chicks sucessfully fledged (about three weeks ago), we were expecting the doves to come back and start another clutch. We saw one of the parent doves at the nest once or twice early last week, but we have seen no activity since. We have removed the old, dirty nest, and hope that a clean platform will entice them back. In the meantime, we have taken DoveCam offline; it will return as soon as we see evidence of activity on the platform. June 26: The second brood of the year succesfully fledged. A third brood is underway. The eggs were laid June 9 and 10; and hatched June 25 and 26. They're growing quickly; we expect they'll leave the nest (fledge) around July 9th. Typically, the chicks get big and restless (stretching their wings and walking around the nest) right before they fledge, so the viewing on DoveCam should be pretty good the next couple of weeks. June
4, 2001: The second brood of the year is growing quickly and should
fledge around June 8th. April
16, 2001: We had almost given up hope. After several days of no
dove visits, we removed the remains of the earlier failed nest.
Several more days passed without any dove visits. Finally, the doves
returned! On April 9th we noticed an egg in the nest. Unfortunately,
we also noticed two paper wasp nests just above the doves' nest--removing
the wasp nests (we were afraid they might sting the chicks; and
they were right outside our door) caused the dove to leave the nest
for a night. We're hoping the night temperatures didn't harm the
viability of the egg. The next day, the doves returned and we noticed
a second egg in the nest on April 11th. Thankfully, there have been
no interruptions since. We expect (hope) that the first egg will
hatch on April 23rd and the second egg will hatch on April 25th.
So, keep watching! Oh yeah, we had a litter of cottontail rabbits
at the base of the dove nest platform--they've grown and left; so,
too, has the rattlesnake we saw there a few days later. March 4, 2001: The eggs from the first clutch (Feb. 8th) did not hatch. About two days after the expected hatch date, the parent birds stopped brooding the eggs. On March 3rd, we removed the eggs from the nest; candling showed them to possibly be infertile. Early February is early in the year for Mourning Doves to be setting up a nest. On March 4 (the day after we removed the eggs), we noticed a pair of doves at the nest for a couple of hours in the morning. Perhaps they will try again. February 8, 2001: There's an egg in the nest! The first egg of the first clutch of this year was laid late on February 7th. One parent bird has been on the nest all day today. This egg should hatch around February 22nd. January 25, 2001: There has been a pair of mourning doves hanging around the nest area lately. DoveCam has been reactivated. This morning, the two doves were seen in the old nest. September 25th: There has been no new activity at the nest since the fourth brood fledged. According to a monograph on mourning doves (Birds of North America project, number 117), nesting usually begins in February or March and ends in late September or early October. Consequently, we have taken DoveCam offline. Should activity resume we will reactivate it (though we suspect this won't be until early 2001). In the meantime, we are redirecting the camera to our feeder and will have that operational shortly. Please check back soon. September 10th: The chicks from the fourth brood (this year) fledged on September 3rd. Will there be a fifth clutch of eggs? August 6th: The chicks from the third brood fledged on July 19th. Sadly, we found one chick dead on the ground the next morning. The nest was empty (except for the occasional visit by a cactus wren, gila woodpecker or lizard) until August 3rd, and there are now two eggs (the fourth clutch this year) in the nest. The first was laid at approximately 3:30 on the afternoon of Friday, August 4th. The eggs should hatch about August 19th and the chicks fledge about September 1st. July 17th: The third brood this year is almost ready to fledge (we expect the chicks to fledge July 19th or 20th). Some new photos added to the Gallery. If you see a cool picture, save it and email it to us for consideration for the Gallery. July 5th: The eggs have hatched! Expect a lot of activity over the next two weeks as the chicks grow; they should flege around July 19th. June 20th: The previous (second brood) of chicks fledged and now two new eggs (tyhe third clutch this year) have been laid. June 9th: The chicks are getting big! And getting a little restless. We think the first one hatched on May 31st, and expect it to fledge about June 14th. Our earlier note that the second egg appeared on May 26th appears to be incorrect. A review of the archived photos shows two eggs in the nest as early as May 20th. See for yourself on the Gallery pages (Gallery pages). May 26th: A second egg seen in the nest. This is (unusually?) later than the first egg. May 17th: The doves have settled in for a second clutch; one egg seen in the nest. New camera position gives a better picture. May 11th: The two chicks have fledged! We will be reorienting the camera to try to get a better image; so DoveCam may be offline awhile today. Hopefully, since the nest was successful, the parent birds will have another brood in the next few days. Stay tuned. A pair of mourning doves has taken up nesting outside our studio. We've installed this webcam (DoveCam) so you can see them too! The image should be live between approximately 8:00 am and 7:00 pm, Arizona time (we don't do Daylight Savings Time here). The image should update automatically every 30 seconds or so. If it doesn't seem to be updating automatically, try clicking the refresh or reload button on your browser. Or, it might be that the dove isn't moving much. Or maybe the server is down--we're still experimenting with this. The doves built the nest around April 10th and we think eggs were laid around April 12th and hatched around April 26th, which means the chicks should fledge around May 10th. If you want to leave the DoveCam on your screen but can't see the entire image without scrolling when it reloads, click on the "DoveCam" mountain logo at the very top of this page (or click here) to get a bare essentials version of this page that should fit on any size monitor. To
learn more about Mourning Doves, visit these links: |
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