Dove Season

[mr surveyor]

I mowed a large field of weeds yesterday, 20 to 25 acres, not one dove flew out of it. A week ago it was full. Our doves have a habit of disappearing right about now.

could it be they all pass the word around to alert the entire flock of opening day of dove season. You know the fish all get together to set the exact date to start the spawn (obviously the fish in every lake in the state are involved in the conspiracy) every year..... I'm sure this is true since I've heard guys from the Dallas area discuss the date of the spawn. I know they must be right about that since they had $50k boats and custom made fishing clothes, and they always devoted several weekends every "fishing season" to the quest for the wall hanger

But, on a more serious note, it is pretty obvious that "local wildlife" (including migratory birds that become "homies") do seem to develop localized habits. During the 70's and 80's, wife and I used to spend a lot of time tent camping all over the state, and the hill country was one of our favorite areas. Since I was still in my infantile stage of wanting to play golf, we really enjoyed Inks Lake State Park because we could camp right by the water, and I could take my clubs around the corner to the golf course. During the Summer, there were always deer roaming around the park and on the golf course, but opening week of archery season the deer population doubled and you had to wait for the deer to get off the greens. By the time gun season opened, the park was over run with deer ... herds. The park rangers said the local deer population actually starts migrating towards the park areas before the shooting starts as if it's become an ingrained trait. I've always believed that to be possible.

Observing animal habits is just downright interesting.

JD

[jdb]

I mowed a large field of weeds yesterday, 20 to 25 acres, not one dove flew out of it. A week ago it was full. Our doves have a habit of disappearing right about now.

could it be they all pass the word around to alert the entire flock of opening day of dove season. You know the fish all get together to set the exact date to start the spawn (obviously the fish in every lake in the state are involved in the conspiracy) every year..... I'm sure this is true since I've heard guys from the Dallas area discuss the date of the spawn. I know they must be right about that since they had $50k boats and custom made fishing clothes, and they always devoted several weekends every "fishing season" to the quest for the wall hanger

But, on a more serious note, it is pretty obvious that "local wildlife" (including migratory birds that become "homies") do seem to develop localized habits. During the 70's and 80's, wife and I used to spend a lot of time tent camping all over the state, and the hill country was one of our favorite areas. Since I was still in my infantile stage of wanting to play golf, we really enjoyed Inks Lake State Park because we could camp right by the water, and I could take my clubs around the corner to the golf course. During the Summer, there were always deer roaming around the park and on the golf course, but opening week of archery season the deer population doubled and you had to wait for the deer to get off the greens. By the time gun season opened, the park was over run with deer ... herds. The park rangers said the local deer population actually starts migrating towards the park areas before the shooting starts as if it's become an ingrained trait. I've always believed that to be possible.

Observing animal habits is just downright interesting.

JD

Absolutely I believe it JD. Same thing happens round here. And the further into gun season we get, the more nocturnal the deer become. Especially in areas where there is the most pressure on them.

I think it gets ingrained into their genes just as much as the way their territories changes when breeding season comes around.

Heck, with dove, we even have a term for how the birds fly after the first week or two of season, They get "birdy!" ;~)

After a week or so, you never see a dove flying in a straight line over open grain fields. It's always flitting left and right as they go. They wise up and get birdy! LOL

[Ranch Dog]

Dove are migratory for sure. Not to the extent of waterfowl but following the food or shelter. This time of year our birds leave and go about 35 miles west to the milo fields that are being harvested.

[Steelbanger]

Good morning,

I thought you'd find these pics interesting. My son saw this dove resting in a tree at his place and took a few pics with his iPhone. It must be migrating since it was never seen until Friday. It sure looks like a white mourning dove to us. Either that or he has a magician in his neighborhood who just had one of his doves escape.

photo.JPG

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[Ranch Dog]

Interesting! There are a lot of people releasing these things at weddings now without thinking about their well being so may be that is it.

[mr surveyor]

a chunk of jalapeno, a wad of cream cheese, bacon wrapped with some dry rub added .... they all taste the same

JD

[mr surveyor]

we made it back at 6:00 p.m. today rather than our usual 2:00 p.m. We managed to squeak in a morning hunt today to make up for a 1 day "lease" we had set up (different than our main lease)for Saturday. We got rained out Saturday morning (another story to follow) so our new land owner friend was good enough to let us hunt Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning ..... which meant two daily limits rather than just one. This feller's land wrapped around three sides (all separated by dirt county roads) of a 40 acre harvested wheat field that he didn't own. The birds flew into the wheat field in the morning from all directions, and back out of the wheat field in all directions in the afternoon. Let's just say there were a lot of birds roosting around the outskirts of that 40 acre patch of wheat stubble. On the other hand, the ranch we generally hunt normally has hay grazer "grass" planted, which has jointed stems similar to small bamboo and big clustered seed heads that attract the birds this time of year. Danged if someone didn't decide to plant cotton on our place this year. We got our "camp" set up at the motel Wednesday afternoon in time to make our first inspection and hunt on the 500 acres we normally hunt and soon found that there wasn't a food plot that suited doves within miles of our place. Didn't matter as it started raining after an hour and a half. Got in a couple hours morning and afternoon on Thursday, between the flash floods, but most of the birds were flying at about 5000 feet and we couldn't get much flack up that high to do much towards a normal limit. Friday was much the same as Thursday with rain-hunt, rain-hunt-rain. Now, Saturday was a day to forget, or another to add to the list of "classics". My wife always tends to brag about the fancy froo-froo motels she stays at when she goes off with her running buddies to look at whatever women like to look at, or her women's church bunch goes to some to-do, but she ain't never had a fancy room like the Roby Inn has with actual "water features" in the room (look it up in the Home and Garden TV stuff .... "water feature" is a big deal for real estate). We was all huddled up under the eve of the building Saturday morning, in the corner where our cook stove and tables were parked in the gravel parking lot and watching the rain pouring ... trying to decide whether to wait it out or take a 20 mile drive to Sweetwater and prowl around for some powder and bullets. When the decision was made to make the drive I went down to my room to get something and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I fidgeted with something for a couple of minutes with my back to the room, then turned around towards the door and saw water trickling towards the door which turned out to be coming out of the bathroom door at the back of the main room. I went and checked to make sure it wasn't the plumbing then got back into the sleeping room in time to see the whole danged floor covered and started grabbing my buddies stuff off the floor and throwing it up on his bed (my stuff stays on my bed in these type "accomodations"). When I finally realized that was rain water gushing in from the back wall I got the attention of the rest of the guys to check their rooms, and one in the room next to us was kicked back on his bed watching the weather channel on t.v. and he was oblivious to the flood was rising around the bed . Since the Roby Hilton International wasn't overbooked , we managed to get other rooms for the four of us flood victims, while the manager got the wetvac into service to prep for the next suckers ... I mean guests. The other 5 guys didn't get the water feature accent.

The powder and bullet hunt wasn't productive. Didn't matter though since we eased on out to the new huntin spot about noonish and the birds were flying in all directions. Lets just say there were quite a few limits shot both Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Before we left to come home we found out that the owner of the 40 acre magic patch was planting cotton next year. I hate cotton .... and water features

JD

[Ranch Dog]

Dang if it doesn't sound like fun!