MIDDLE SEASON DOVES

[Joe D.]

I have wild bird feeders in my front yard and although large numbers of doves have left our area I usually see five to a dozen doves eating discarded safflower seed out there. Maybe what I am seeing are transients? Not sure.

[J. A. EARLY]

Originally Posted by Joe Dreisch

I have wild bird feeders in my front yard and although large numbers of doves have left our area I usually see five to a dozen doves eating discarded safflower seed out there. Maybe what I am seeing are transients? Not sure.

My understanding is that the birds that remain are almost all males. Later on we do get migratory birds. I find this to be true as 9 out of 10 birds I kill are males, as identified by the purple/pink marking on the sides of their necks. Late in the winter it is 100% male. There are certain farms I hunt where the birds congregate each year. Often by the hundreds. These are farms that have allowed dove hunting each year and thousands upon thousands have been killed there since I was a kid. But they come back. Other farms will have none. I find the key is that there is a power line through the fields where they may congregate and observe the ground before flying down to a predator. The last day I killed my limit was a place where I had finished hunting elsewhere the day before and drove by the field and it looked as if the power line would break as doves were lined up side by side for a quarter mile.