European assault!

The warming sun was already well above the eastern jagged peaks of the McCullough Hills by the time we pulled the ol' Chevy up to the cottonwood lined fields. Just a few days prior, mourning doves flew back and forth from these trees in small flocks. But now, in just a few days some one had leaked out to the doves that hunting season was to start September 1st, and so they had all disappeared.



I panicked a bit since I had gotten all the girls up that morning with high hopes of lots of trigger pulling. Roo confessed to me two weeks prior that her favorite type of hunting is bird hunting cause she gets to shoot a lot more at birds than at big game species. As a kid, I was definitely the same way. Here we were all, in the truck, with no doves. This was no time to panic...



A light bulb lit up in my head. I knew a local dairy farm that had more local eurasian collared doves pestering their farm than they wanted. They were happy for us to come out and I was loving we had a back-up plan...and what a plan it was.



It didn't take long for everybody to get into the shooting as Mac happily ran back and forth picking up dead european exotic doves, europoean starling, and european house sparrows that were expecting some corn morsels not a lead breakfast. It was a full-blown european assault!



Laynee shot her first bird with the little mule-kickin 20 gauge. I felt bad for her as the little gun walloped her shoulder. She cried and decided she was done for the morning, but enjoyed helping Mac retreive our birds. I was proud of her for making the attempt with the shotgun. Roo, well Roo is Roo. She unloaded magazine after magazine from the 12 gauge and would quickly have me shove another batch of loads into the gun before the next volley of doves.

It was a blast and great way to start the fall hunting season!!!

Annie Oakley and her dog

Our little biologist/surgeon quickly disassembling a dove one part at a time