Yes, it?s dove season in central Pa. I got invited on my new neighbor?s annual dove hunt, and cook out. Dove hunting is a sort of odd activity, and I engaged in it in solitary fashion in previous years. On these occasions, I?d go out by myself mainly to chase trespassers off the farm, kind of protecting the turf, with my occasional shot announcing my presence. If I didn?t do this, the hunters would sneak on by the dozen. I enjoyed this role of protector, and usually I?d end up shooting a couple of doves, and cook them for dinner. They?re breasts taste excellent lightly seasoned, wrapped in bacon and barbecued. This was kind of my toll on the land for my role as protector, and for the hundreds of doves who were saved by my actions, or that?s how I saw myself, and it was accurate enough in that my land was never hunted very much compared to surrounding areas, and it became something of a dove sanctuary during the season. The hunters would inadvertently chase them onto my land where they?d be safe, because of my presence.
Of course, I didn?t have to take any doves, myself, but it seemed fitting and proper that I do so. It all balances out. The doves make use of my land. I protect my land, and charge a small fee in dove lives for doing so.
Dove hunting also was a good way to scout for deer early in the season. After I shot a couple of deer my first years on the farm, I gave up the rifle and took to bow hunting, and hadn?t gotten one since. This is ok, because bow hunting for deer really isn?t about actually getting a deer. It?s about forming a relationship with a herd of deer and their land (maybe some more about this later.)
Anyway this was how I hunted dove before I sold the farm this past May, and it left me completely unprepared for my hunt with my new neighbor.
In preparing to go over to my neighbor?s and caravan over to where we were to hunt, it occurred to me that he might view the dove hunting in a different way then I had. By this, I mean that I was under the impression that his primary interest was to kill a whole bunch of doves, rather than patrol and scout.
Now, I have two shotguns. One is a very old Tikka combination gun. It has two barrels. On top is a 12 gauge with a full choke, underneath is a .222 rifle barrel. It only has one trigger. It?s a very interesting weapon for several reasons. First off, it has a manually removable scope mount that actually works. Once it?s sighted in, you can remove it or put it on with the twist of a knob, and it will shoot perfectly. Secondly, there are all kinds of different barrel kits for the Tikka, so you can set it up for any activity you choose. For example, when I went groundhog hunting, I would load a bullet into the rifle chamber and a slug into the shotgun. Then I would set the selector switch to shoot the rifle first, and mount the scope.
A groundhog will frequently hang out with just his nose sticking up, looking for predators, like hawks, or me. This is a difficult target even with the scoped rifle. The thing about the Tikka is that it will fire just as fast as you can pull the trigger twice. If you should miss with the rifle shot, the groundhog will run. The recoil of the Tikka will pull the rifle back and down, and your eye will naturally drop out of the scope and onto the iron sight of the shotgun, which will then be in perfect position for a second shot at the groundhog who is now running for his life. A groundhog on the run is a tough shot, but a slug from a shotgun is the perfect tool to take him. A slug is a great big huge chunk of lead, and will blow up a fair amount of shrapnel even if you miss by a bit, giving you a good shot at killing the groundhog.
Think of it as a grenade launcher, and you get the picture.
I usually hunted dove with this rifle, only I set the selector switch for the shotgun with a light game load, and kept some bullets in my pocket in case I saw a groundhog.
The problem with this setup is that you have only one shot. This was fine for my purposes on the farm, but I?m not sure it would do with the environment I was heading for.
So, I left this fine weapon behind and grabbed my crappy Remmington pump shotgun which will hold three shots, grabbed some extra shells and went to see the neighbor.
There?s about 8 people in this crowd, and I only know the neighbor who invited me. They?re all very nice, and pretty excited about the prospect of shooting a bunch of doves, cooking them up and drinking a bunch of beer, and we make friendly noises at each other as we drive over to where we?ll hunt.
It occurs to me that the idea of dove hunting must sound like a joke to those of you who?ve never heard of it.
?You mean, you really hunt doves? The bird of peace?? It sounded weird when I first moved to the farm and heard of it as well.
Mourning doves are gorgeous migratory birds. They are a very pleasing grey almost silvery color with round heads, and big intelligent eyes. They are sleek and graceful in flight. Habitually, they mate for life. When one dies (or gets shot,) its mate will often stay with it, refusing to abandon its love. It may or may never mate again. This is not why they are called Mourning Doves though. They get their name from the sound they make when they take off in flight.
I don?t know what mechanism causes it, I assume it?s the displacement of air their beating wings make, but when they take off it sounds exactly like a young woman crying softly, quite eerie and beautiful.
During the fall they begin to form into flocks in preparation for their migration. Usually they form up at dusk. Once I walked by an old gnarled tree and startled what must have been a hundred of them at once. They exploded from the tree and flew off into the red twilight, filling the air with the sound of a hundred women?s sorrow, blessing me with a privileged moment.
I understand that in the past, at this time of year, the skies would literally be filled with enormous flocks of millions of doves preparing for their migration. Great clouds of them would shift back and forth across the sky on autumn nights. Those days are long gone though, and while there are still plenty of doves their numbers are supposedly paltry to what they were in times past.
Here?s why:
We get to where we?re going to hunt, and disperse throughout the field. As dusk comes the Mourning Doves begin to form up, and fly in twos and fours to find others. Two fly about thirty yards ahead of my neighbor, who leads and fires, downing one. The remaining dove flies off in a panic. The sound of the shotgun startles other doves who take off in flight as well, and the thing has begun like a nuclear chain reaction.
One flies at me, and I lead it slightly and fire, and it falls almost at my feet. This disperses the group it was flying with and startles more doves into the air, who are brought down as they try to form into a flock. The remainder disperse, and join up with others that they bring into the air to their doom, so that each bird you shoot brings you two more.
This same activity is going on in the fields all around us, and the air is filled with panicked doves, trapped by instinct into the behavior that lines them up for slaughter. The shotguns boom, and the birds fly. With a good shot, sometimes you can get a twofer. Sometimes you will shoot one, and it?s mate will remain, circling, giving you an easy second shot.
Dispersed as we are, we chase the birds back and forth into each other?s range with the booms of our shotguns, and in ten minutes I have my limit of an even dozen, which is about twice what I can eat.
I collect them from where they have fallen, while my neighbor and his friends keep booming away at them. The doves are so much living skeet, and they are having a great time. They are all friendly and good people, and I?m sorry that I?ve come.
I?m not having a good time blasting them. In fact, I feel completely out of context.
Now you may be reading this with a variety of different actions. You may be thinking ?What the hell does this have to with anything?? ?Why is this in the pit?? ?Does this have something to do with the other two threads??
It does.
Rather than be obtuse, let me try to spell out the moral as I see it:
These doves, as I?ve tried to show them to you here have many different contexts, and others besides. You may have your own impressions of doves; as the bird of peace, the bird in the magician?s hat, a fine pet, and object of beauty, etc.
My neighbor and his friends see them as living skeet, fun shooting, target practice, a chance for a barbecue and beer and some camaraderie.
I am enriched by my experience with doves because I have seen them in so many different contexts. I have admired them. I have hunted them, I have been awed and privileged by rare moments that they have blessed me with like that moment at the gnarled tree. I have seen the magician pull them from the hat. I have looked at the ?pretty birdies laughing? with my daughter (who thinks the crying sound is laughter.) I have ripped through their soft grey feathers with my fingers, ripped out their bloody breasts, wrapped them in bacon and cooked them on a grill, and savored their taste. I have been both their protector and their murderer as I walked across my farm and admired them and the land and the moment I was in. I have carelessly shot them out of the air and slaughtered them by the hundreds as if they were nothing of consequence, nothing that mattered at all, and for the sheer sport of it, though decades of this activity has decimated their number and the skies will never again be filled from horizon to horizon with their numbers.
This last is the only one that I regret. I would have liked to have seen that. That?s unrealistic for a number of reasons though.
I have known doves, and experienced them in all these contexts.
I don?t think any of them are correct or incorrect. They simply all are. Doves are all these things and mean all these things, and can be experienced in all these ways and more.
I think it would be a mistake to lock onto one context, or one perspective of doveness as I?ve tried to show it, and say that it is the correct way, and that the other ways are wrong. One can see a dove and interact with it in a variety of different ways depending on one?s circumstances and context. None of these ways is necessarily superior to any other, nor can you judge one context from another.
I think if there is a virtue to be had, it is to experience and understand, accept or appreciate as many of these contexts as you can.
That?s why I can both admire a dove with my daughter in a pet store, pet its silvery neck and listen to it coo while my daughter smiles, and also see them as something, wild, or to be hunted, or as food.
Recently on these boards I have presented something in one context, as I experienced it. I?m pretty sure that my context was valid, and I?m well aware that it?s not the only valid one.
I will not apologize for having experienced that context or trying to convey it, or trying to be humorous in doing so. I do very much wish I had done a better job. I got some very strong reactions. I also didn?t do a very good job of dealing with those.
So, to all of those who?ve read or reacted, or cursed or laughed, or reasoned in the recent Viper thread and its spinoff?.
?.I offer you a dove.
It?s up to you to choose the context.
(It?s the least you deserve for having read this)
