Monday, March 05, 2007

New Doves

I quit dove hunting years ago, when it became apparent that you couldn't hunt over a field in North Louisiana without it being baited in the opinion of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. There were a couple of times when state game wardens would look at a field and declare it legal to hunt over that field, then have the Federal boys come out and write tickets to everyone standing in the field. I didn't need that sort of heartbreak, so I quit dove hunting.

Walking across the parking lot this morning, I saw a dove land to peck gravel. It looked bigger than our standard mourning dove, so I walked over to get a better look at it.



It looked like this. The Eurasian collared dove. It seems we've got a new species hereabouts. I don't recall seeing that distintive collar, but I was busy looking for wing and tail identifiers. The bird I saw in the parking lot was bigger than our mourning doves, was grey, and was smaller than the local pigeon population.

The Louisiana DWF website says this:
There are currently at least 5 other different species of dove breeding in Louisiana: Ground, Inca, white-winged, rock (common pigeons), and Eurasian collared-doves. The latter is an exotic that is rapidly spreading across the south. At this time, the impact of the Eurasian collared-doves on mourning doves is unknown. It is larger and more aggressive than the native mourning dove.
Hmmm!
at

4 comments:

  1. Rivrdog7:44 PM

    When I was a lad of 18, sophomore at the University of MO, and on the rifle team there, I got an offer through my Mom to go down over Thanksgiving and hunt deer with my cousins in SE Arkansas, down by England (Watson's Chapel, actually, named for my great grandpappy). I got on the train and they met me at Little Rock and we drove for a half day to get there. The weather was horrible for the first two days, so we stayed in the cabin and drank cheap bourbon and played cards and shot the bull.

    Of interest in that discussion was the recent fate of two State game agents who had disappeared off the face of the earth, or so it seemed.

    The game agents were trying to police a hunting season known for it's "enterprising" ways of hunting, and also known for the fact that when those 'ol boys went down to hunt in the bottoms, they HUNTED, that is, whatever was game, season or not.

    Now, I don't think my cousins had anything to do with the disappearance of the wardens, but every time we went out to a local market to refresh our supplies, one of the clerks would ask the cousin if we had seen any game wardens lately...

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  2. Anonymous6:14 AM

    There were a couple of times when state game wardens would look at a field and declare it legal to hunt over that field, then have the Federal boys come out and write tickets to everyone standing in the field.

    You know, the sheriff could put a stop to that, if he would.

    The Termite

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  3. Pawpaw7:50 AM

    Termite.

    Back in that day, in that parish, the Sheriff had problems of his own, what with his Federal Probation Officer and recent conviction. He didn't want to rock any boats.

    Hell, those Federal boys even wrote the sitting Judge a ticket in that dove field that day. He lost his hunting priveliges for a year.

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  4. Pawpaw7:50 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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