Doves?

[Wingman]

Man, have y'all noticed all of them this spring?

I see 30 or 40 every day on the way home from work, and in the fields I spray. We rode through Panther looking at the farmland we had to spray, and saw no less than 400 birds on the edge of the gravel roads we were using. Wow! It looked like September.

Wingman

By the way, when is opening day this year?

[Greenhead22]

Rob, the majority of the doves we are seeing are those domesticated birds, or euroasian doves. They look just like a mourning dove, just lighter in color and make a funny noise.

I'm guessing that opening day will be 1st weekend of the month, whatever date that is.

[Wingman]

GH22, I know you just graduated and are supposed to be a real genius now, but I'm pretty sure I know a mourning dove from a Eurasian dove

Hang in there, college grad. Lot's of people go to college for 8 years.

Wingman

[Wildfowler]

I'm planning on shooting the crops out of those domesticated birds this September. How about you?

[Greenhead22]

GH22, I know you just graduated and are supposed to be a real genius now, but I'm pretty sure I know a mourning dove from a Eurasian dove

Hang in there, college grad. Lot's of people go to college for 8 years.

Wingman

haha.....very funny.......bout the only way you can tell is by the sound they make, they look darn near identical. I thought about trying to shoot some one day at the field, but I kept second guessing myself when a bird would come by.

8 yrs??? try a little over 4 yrs........

If you are seeing mourning doves now........more than likely they did not migrate back after the hunting season.........so that now makes them "domesticated" doves...........

[Wingman]

I think the word you are looking for is "resident", not "domesticated". Domesticated means tame. They aren't tame by any means.

But I thought the Eurasian doves were about half again bigger than mourning doves. About halfway between the size of a pigeon and a dove.

Wingman

[TheStump]

Wingman is right. The correct description would be resident doves. This is nothing new, thousands after thousands reside locally each year and nest here each year. GH22 may be referring to the Eurasian-collared dove that have now been recorded in all 82 counties of the state. The Collared dove is more of a suburban resident, also seen frequently around barns, seed supply facilities, dairies, barns, and the such, usually do not congregate with Mourning doves. You will probably see congregations of Mourning doves, especially directly after these frequent rains like we have been having lately.

BY the way guys, check your doves this fall, some may have leg bands. MDWFP and MSU Dept. of Wildlife & Fisheries will band at least 2000 of them across the state in July-August. There will be a 1-800 # on the band to report your harvest, you keep the band.

Hey GH22, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[TODO]

Gh22

The euroasian dove is at least 1/2 time bigger than a mourning dove and they seem slightly lighter in color . To me they resemble a pigeon. I have been seeing a lot of doves around our place lately, both mourning and ringneck. I hope they stick around for september!

[Drakeshead]

I was thinking about putting out some sunflower on some of our land up around Tupelo. When is the best time to plant it? How long does it take to get full so that it can be chopped down to attract the doves?

[TheStump]

Drakeshead,

Its probably to late, I try to plant mine by April 15 - May 1 if you want them matured and dried out for 1st season. If you plant now you could probably count on a good crop for second season. But, your probably like every one else, you need some sunshine for a looooonnnnngggg while to dry things out. I'm glad I dont farm for a living.

By the way use Black oil sunflower seed, not the Striped variety. Also the big key is clean ground underneath. Use some herbicides, pre-plant and post-plant, it will make a tremendous difference.

[hillhunter]

yea i see the resident doves here all the time. if you pay attention you'll notice that they love to nest in cotton fields. they stay pretty concentrated until the corn gets cut, then they spread out around here.

[Nitro Mag]

Talking about bands on doves. A couple of my friends were sitting in my driveway yesterday and swear they saw a dove in my front yard with a band.

[Wingman]

I just got my sunflowers in the ground Tuesday, sprayed with pre-emerge and an inch of rain 15 minutes later. I expect to see them tomorrow or Sunday.

Last year they got planted on the 10th and were fully mature and dry 3 weeks before season, when I began mowing.

They usually take about 100-110 days to mature, I think, but they can stand a drought and will dry down pretty quick if it stays dry in August. As mentioned, doves like a clean place to land, so a good pre-emerge herbicide mix to keep the weeds out early, and then maybe one trip thru with the cultivator when they are about a month old will help alot. Don't forget to put some nitrogen on them to give 'em a boost. I put out 30 gal/acre of 32%N on mine, when I burned it down.

Only thing is, once they start to die and dry up, if you get rains like we had last August, the morningglory will take off and cover the field. There's really nothing you can do about that.

If you can't get the sunflowers planted in the next few days, I would wait a month and plant browntop millet. It matures in about 60 days, and they really love the seed. But don't give up hope if you can't get your crop in the ground, doves eat a variety of native seed. Foxtail, broadleaf signalgrass, sprangletop and especially teaweed are favored dove foods. The next time you shoot a dove, look in it's craw for those little Hershey Kiss looking seed with prongs, that's your teaweed.

Wingman

[Seymore]

We've got a sunflower field in Okolona that looks great so far. Field was planted in mid April and the rains helped bring them up. If the weather will just cooperate now it should be good shooting.

Those Euroasion doves are whatever there called are like "robo dove". I swear I had solid hits on some with high powered dove loads last year and it didn't bring them down.

[Drakeshead]

Rob,

Thanks for all that info. I didn't know what all else I could turn to if the sunflower planting does not come about.

Seymore,

The land I am thinking about planting on is right on the Lee/Chickasaw County Line. My Dad's side of the Family is from Shannon and have farm land just down the county line road there. They mostly lease it out now to soy bean farmers, but when my Granddad was alive it was him out there doing all the soybean farming.