After two weeks I noticed one baby in the nest and the second eg was on the ground along with dove feathers.

Question

The next day both doves abandoned the next and took the baby! They have been using my hanging basket for over 6 years and and have successfully raised at lleast 10 sets of babies. Don't know what happened. Basket is in fartherest corner of large covered pateo.Never saw another bird in area..

Answer 1

Sorry, they didn't take the baby.  Not if it was just hatched.  If the other egg was on the ground with feathers around it and if the baby was gone next day, something spooked or killed them.  A predator found the nest - not bad averages if they've raised 20 young successfully there.

Doves and pigeons don't remove young from the nest, no matter how frightened they are.

Answer 2

Birds are not capable of taking their babies out of a nest.. sounds like a predator got to the nest.  The feathers could have belonged to the baby bird or one of the parents.  This is pretty common, most nests are not successful.

Answer 3

There was something wrong with the abandoned baby and, cruel as this sounds, when there's any flaw in an egg or hatchling, the parents push it from the nest. And having something dead around (aka, the pushed birdy) attracts predators. So the parents moved, taking their baby with them. They might come back next year, they might not. Other than moving the baby bird that was abandoned, do not touch a thing. That might ruin any chance left of the parents coming back next year.

Best of luck!