Yeah!! I live in northern Canada, so this is a first for me. What lovely birds!

“Good quality” and “Acme Corporation” are contradictions in terms! 😂

Beep beep!

😂 Beep beep!

@@jamesa.rodriguez8598 I don’t think many people know what that means. I used to watch those cartoons as a kid in The 50s and later in the 1980s I watched them with my own kids.

🤣🤣

There are several possible explanations for rejection of chicks. Some rejections may occur due to abrupt changes in weather or food availability. If a chick hatches much later than its siblings, it may be rejected (timing of food availability plays a role). Also, a late-hatching chick may be perceived as ill or unlikely to survive, and may be rejected by the parents. That may have been the case here, where the egg hatched too late and would prolong the breeding cycle, risking reduced food availability or attracting a predator to the nest. Some species developed a reprductive strategy to ensure survival where two chicks are produced. If conditions are favorable and the older chick survives, the younger chick is ignored and starves to death. It's a reproductive adaptation which evolved in certain species, though heart rendering for humans to witness when studying species with this adaptation, especially if that species is already endangered. In any case, chick rejection is always a difficult to situation to witness for those who study wildlife.

​@@EyeSeeThruYouYour post is very informative as to the reasons for rejecting the mother might reject the chicks. Btw, it's "rending" not "rendering."

I spent 4 days at Portal now so long ago. Magical place! Bless your calling!

Brood culling is not unusual in the avian world. That it happened here so methodically and quickly (to healthy nestlings, by all appearances!) indicates that it may be in response to ecosystem pressures, as ​@EyeSeeThruYou pointed out, so it's likely an instinctual behavior. Pre-fledging, the final chick almost resembles a parasitic cuckoo nestling, did anyone else see that? Then I looked it up and learned that roadrunners are part of the cuckoo family, Cuculidae. TIL!

@@EyeSeeThruYou I think all the chicks seemed about the same age and vigor. Especially the second one seemed even slightly more robust. i wonder if the long presence of the unhatched egg was making mom feel like something was off and she didn't identify what it was.

Looked like the same species repeatedly came back to that same nest or possibly the same dove as it was checking the nest location several times in the video.

They suck at building their own nest LoL.

Oh no we got a squatter!!!! Lol

Yeah but. They kick them out Really fast. Humans they have to do paper work. And that will take months to kick them out. Specially in New York USA. The system doesn’t work on your favor. 😂 Question why she eat those chicks.

not enough food

@@niflheimder6348 Usually that right there. Not enough food to go around for all five of them. Seen a vid recently of a family of two parents with three juvies in someone's back porch/kitchen area, implying the person might have been feeding them or leaving out food for the parents. But this apparently happens a lot with various carnivorous birds.

No room for 2nd best in this nest!

I thought it was one of the rejected siblings!

It was it's own rejected baby. They do thst in times when food is scarce I personally didn't see a shortage of lizards haha. TMI for me.

They fed them whole frogs a few times, maybe that’s what you saw.

these birds tend to consume their food whole

I don't think it was being ineffectual considering they were auditioning to be the sole chick that gets to live.

@@rhondafarrow6235 Haha, good response

Yep a dove nest...two sticks on a flat surface. Most definitely not the smartest of birds

Tradução

Not so beautiful work when the parents rejected the other babies

Did we watch the same video?

Gross. She fed 1 baby to another. 🤮

Yes, they should (and have in years past) start nesting later in the season. BTW, it was the male roadrunner who rejected the nestlings.

​@@macplethoraWhy did he reject the babies?

@@lindaadelwerth8042there was not enough food. They fed them to the other chick

Ya, maybe not enough food

He wanted a paternity test……

Well, the roadrunners picked the location. Here is the backstory: In 2022 and 2023 we had some temporary shelves on our back patio (facing east) because of construction/renovation. The roadrunner couple discovered the top shelf (about 6.5 feet above ground) and build a nest on it in both years. In 2022 they laid two eggs but abandoned them after a week. In 2023 they never fully completed the nest. Both years they were active in late April. In mid-February 2024 we saw the roadrunner couple check out our patio again, but the shelves were gone - thankfully we completed our construction project and removed the shelves. So I quickly build a nesting platform and installed it in the same location, 7 feet above the ground, along with the camera. It took the birds less than 24 hours to start a nest on the new platform. Apparently they liked the location. We stopped using our patio, and closed the blinds on the window facing the patio/nest. We had a successful nesting/hatching cycle this year. It is surprising how early they started nesting, but it has been warmer than usual here in Southern New Mexico. We think the lack of food early in the season led to the rejection of the three hatchlings.

Hi, the nest is 7 feet up. Roadrunners can hop pretty well and glide. We've seen them on our roof and high up in the trees. Our male has a prominent orange/yellow spot behind the white stripe behind the eyes. The female just has the white stripe, and is slightly smaller.

​@@macplethora any idea why they rejected the others?

@@user-bq9tw8lt5l Shortage of food supply to sustain three/four hatchlings. Nested and hatched too early in the year.

Tal cual,son minidinosaurios.Ese sonido es muy inquietante.

Ad nd what. Go and catch lizards and little chicks to feed it?

Most bird will kill and or remove smaller/weaker hatchlings to priortize the strongest and healthiest to nurture mature.

Also, it was early in the season, it got cold again, and there was a shortage of food. Most lizards hadn't come out yet.

I’m surprised that the parents didn’t feed that newly-hatched last chick to its much larger sibling!

@@BlahBohogunPlus, that nest didn’t look big enough for more than one hatchling!

​@johnhall3570...****ABSOLUTELY NO FOOD TO SPARE !!!!****😊...😳😱😭💔🐣🐤/ 😳😱😭💔 🐣🐤/ 😳😱😭💔🐣🐤**** ...AND... ****ABSOLUTELY NO SPACE TO SPARE EITHER, HERE !!!!****...😳😱😭💔🐣🐤/ 😳😍🤩💔🐣🐤/ 😳🥳🤩💔🐣🐤****

They lined the inside of the nest with pine needles, feathers, and other soft stuff, see the empty nest at the end. They also kept the nest immaculate, no poop at all!

Comeu os próprios irmãos

Fed them to the others.

Wenn nicht genug Futter für alle da ist, machen das Störche in Germany auch.

if there is a good year and a lot of food especially lizards, they can raise more than one baby. so the supply of food determines how many chicks they can raise. also other eggs are insurance if the first eggs don't hatch or chicks die

Well, go and ask the parents yourself 😂