Dove season opens in October, here in Kentucky. People armed with shot guns go out and blam away at the soft gray birds ... I suppose if you get enough, and do the work to clean them, you might have a dinner. You MIGHT.
But at our home the doves are safe - safe and fed and fat. Here is what I've seen of doves.
Doves navigate the air like June bugs do - they are like a drunken sailor (no offence to the Navy) and flap back and forth careening toward their target.
Doves fill their cheeks like squirrels. I have watched a dove fill its cheeks so full - maybe a half cup of sunflower seeds crammed in - that the dove, when it lifted off the ground to rise to its perch, did so with its head sunk lower than its body under the weight of treasure.
Doves are ground eaters. They can't perch on feeders and so make due with what is dropped - which is a lot, frankly. With undisguised malice they attack each other to gain advantage.
Sloppy flyers, greedy stuffers and bickering kids at a playground, mourning doves remain a pleasure to watch, and stay all winter to entertain any birder. My home is a no hunting zone! Welcome doves~
1 comment:
we had to take the tray off our feeder because it afforded them a perch, and they would eat the whole feeder in 20 min! also, i have eaten tiny dove breast - the first year we were here... benji hunted them and fed them to us. dark meat, surprisingly tender. but a little tragic.
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