I have seen parent sparrows dump defective babies out of the nest and parent robins deliver dead babies far from the nest, but this was the first time I saw MURDER. Of course murder is a human behavior. In the bird world elimination is a form of necessity. I can only assume that this dove baby had a problem. There had been two babies in this nest. I came along and saw the mother pecking very hard deep in the nest, peck, peck PECK like a woodpecker workjng into a. tree Then I saw that she had a seed at her beak. That's what she would be feeding a nestling. But she wasn't feeding anyone.
Then I saw that she had what looked like a piece of bread which she ate. I still could not tell what was going on.
Until I saw her yank what looked like a baby dove.
Yank, peck, pull, eat something. Was she cleaning out a baby's rear end? I had no idea.
Until I saw a dead baby being yanked and beaten with determination
This baby was being throttled while the second baby sat under the mother. Oblivious.
You can see healthy baby under mother while dead baby was being mauled.
The parent continued to peck and eat from the corpse while the live baby dozed.
Healthy baby under mother during violence
Home alone. The father would arrive shortly. Corpse never removed from nest.
I thought I had seen everything. This was a first.
