while out looking at these:
I also noticed some of these:
so I double checked this:
and got one of these:
but I did some research to be double sure and found this:
so I made a bunch of these
to attract one of these:
I ended up with this and that:
I came back later and ended up with that and those:
at the end of the day I found some these:
and cooked em up with all of those I got earlier:
sorry for the hack job photo essay, its the off season what can I say?
besides the pigeons, all of the birds above are Eurasian collard dove, an invasive species that has been growing in numbers during the last ten years or so. there is no season and no limit for them since they are competing for food with indigenous mourning doves. all you need to hunt them is a current license and preferably steel shot
being and avid bird watcher and bunny hugging - fern petter I have noticed these birds increasing over the years, this season it seems like the population has boomed.
its very easy to tell the difference between a mourning dove and Euro. even the very youngest Euros are much larger than a mature mourning dove. they fly much slower than a mourning dove, with long wing beats that are similar to a pigeons. color and size wise you can't mistake the two, a euro is much lighter in color and is closer to the size of a pigeon.
as far as the hunt goes, they were bombing through the decoys in groups of twos, threes, or six and it made for some very fast shooting, they only have two speeds super slow, and super fast.
they are fantastic eating grilled, served with morels and sage buerre blanc.
