White-winged, mourning and Eurasian collared doves (from top to bottom) are all three showing up on south Alabama fields. Photo by Mike Thompson.

After a long, hot summer, wingshooters in the southern part of Alabama look forward to busting a few caps and bagging birds on the wing for the first time in months. Dove hunters have long since prepped their fields in anticipation of the opening of the season.

The hard work in those fields and the continuing trend of skyrocketing oil and gas prices have some bird shooters wondering if it’s all worth it. Fuel costs have driven the prices of seed, fertilizers and insecticides up as well. All of these increased expenses have made dove hunting a pricey proposition.

Despite any such downsides, fall will find most dove hunters in the field as usual. Nothing quite matches the camaraderie that goes along with a typical south Bama dove hunt. The prehunt meeting sees old friends getting to enjoy fellowship with those who share the same passion for wingshooting. Jokes are told, along with the stories of hunts gone by. Young hunters accompanying fathers, uncles or granddads sit back quietly to take in the tales of the senior shotgunners.

After the mandatory safety discussion, hunters hit the field in hopes of bagging a limit of birds. Hunters pick out a position that they feel will afford them the best opportunity to intercept the elusive gray rockets. Some pick the right spot; others are less fortunate.

Dove hunters are no different from any other hunters when it comes to trying to gain an advantage over their quarry. Putting up elaborate ground blinds to hide from the doves has become pretty standard. The use of dove decoys either placed on the ground around the blind or positioned in nearby trees, or along fences, enhances the chances of bagging birds.

Over the past few seasons, dove hunters have added another tool to their hunting arsenal. The spinning-wing decoy is, just as the name implies, a dove decoy with a battery-powered motor that causes the wings of the decoy to spin, thus imitating a flying dove. Place it on a raised stand, and its spinning wings can be seen from quite a distance. This motion captures the attention of the doves and lures them near to the decoy. While the birds’ eyes are fixed on the decoy, the chances of their spotting the hunter are diminished.

BONUS BIRDS
While the target of most south Bama dove hunters is the mourning dove, there are a couple of recent additions that may end up in a hunter’s game bag a well.

The white-winged dove is a migratory bird common in the central and Western states. South Alabama hunters encountered the whitewing on rare occasions in the past, but it was definitely an oddity at best.

White-winged doves are very similar to the mourning doves in size and coloration. However, as you might guess, the whitewings have a distinctive white patch on their wings. These doves normally prefer the arid country of the southwest United States and Mexico.

But over the last couple of seasons, south Bama hunters have seen a marked increase in whitewings. Theories about the upward trend abound. Some hunters attribute it to hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, which made landfall one year apart at the end of August and coincident with a large migration of whitewings that’s normally under way at that time of year. It’s thought that some of those doves attempted to skirt the storms and ended up in Alabama and Florida.