Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Doves Dying in this cold.

19 two nights in a row and 3 in of snow night before last. Cloudy, cold for three days and fine mist of ice last night.

Let the cocker out this am and he finds a white wing casualty, which we notice after the fact when he doesnt bust bsck in after painting the snow.

I chase him down (wifes dog), scare him, pitch mouthed dove over fence and we come in.

A few later i hear a loud thump, like when our resident aplomodo attacks our flock of a hundred or so Incas, morning, white wings and ringnecks as they devour a quarter gallon of hen scratch my wife puts on the picnic table twice a day, as when one tries to fly through a closed window.

I go out and it's sitting on the back porch with its head tilted over to the right a bit. The left eye is open but its right, along with its entire right side is covered in ice near an eighth inch thick.

When i bent to pick it up i was going to dehead it but not wanting to get in trouble from some of the gang for killing a dove out of season i straightened its ruffeld rt wing feathers a bit and brought it in.

Holding it in my hands a bit the ice started thawing and i was, after a bit, able to pick it off. It would not take water drops from my finger though i dont know where they can get water in this weather. Figuring its pretty cold i sat it in a soft recliner and laid a towel over it and where it now awaits while, i supoose, we both contemplate its future prospects.

I had initially thought it had a broken neck and would join the mess of blue quail i got last weekend but it may be that carrying the weight of ice on its head all night is the reason its head was tilted to the right.

I guess i'll check it in a while after it wsrms up and try to see if it wants water or hen sctratch before putting it out on the downwind side.

Im thinking it was ok but when trying to fly for the first time today it just could keep an even keel.

Birdy, any advice.

Any advice? Creamed over toast.

Cold will kill the hell out 'em for sure.

A few years ago when temps reached minus 15, I was at the ranch and lots of stuff died that first night. There was not a dove left alive in a large area.

Coyotes sure liked it though. They went around eating dead dove and other small game for weeks afterwards... In fact, I was calling coyotes and called up two that had dove in their mouths when they responded to the call and I shot them.

Before the dove all died, they were very lethargic that evening. You could walk right up to them. At the time the temp was just about zero at dusk. In the morning, it was -15, and the dead dove littered the ground.

rockinbar;
Good morning to you sir, hopefully this still and thus far sunny last Saturday in February finds you well.

Thanks for the details on birds in your area and how the cold affects them - and the coyotes too.

I found it interesting that your coyotes would come in to a call when they were already finding good food sources. We had some type of Pasteurella virus hit our wild sheep - I think I'm calling it the right thing here, but might not be - they got it from interaction with domestic sheep and before it was done about 2/3 of our California's were dead up and down the east side of our valley.

Anyway, that winter was also a heavy snow one which forces a lot if not most of the deer and sheep into pretty confined areas so the predation gets easier for the coyotes, cougars and bobcats.

We repeatedly failed to get a coyote to do anything other than bark or howl back at us that winter and I always supposed that it was because they had full bellies from dead sheep and so weren't interested in seeing who'd killed a rabbit one ridge over.

As with most things though sir, that's just a guess on my part and like as not - a poor one at that.

It's good to "talk" to you anyway sir and all the best to you this weekend.

Dwayne

There is a reason many birds fly south for the winter. Those that don't, run the risk of becoming an easy snack for those animals that can't migrate to avoid the bad weather. Winters can be hard on wildlife. Better a quick death from you than being eaten alive by some coyote. My vote would be smother fried with grits…

Dwayne,

I have seen what you describe with coyotes as well. The instances I have seen it was with coyotes and an abundance of grasshoppers. Certain years have produced millions of grasshoppers, and coyotes love them!

During the time the grasshoppers are thick, it's hard to call in coyotes, for sure. It usually lasts until there is a freeze that is intense enough to kill the grasshoppers, and even then, the coyotes will graze for days on the dead, frozen grasshoppers, and only respond to distress calls after the supply of them is eaten up. Although you can call them up with coyote vocalizations. Especially in breeding season.

The dove were not plentiful enough to stop the coyotes from coming to the call. It just shows the coyotes greedy nature...

I had a friend call and kill one that came in with a partially eaten WT deer fawn clamped in it's jaws...

All is well here. Wish it would rain some more, though! (Y'all can keep the ice up your way.)

A coyote just can't pass up a free meal. I wasn't on this hunt but was told about a coyote pursued by multiple vehicles. It headed for a narrow strip of unpicked corn. It went in one end and came out the other with a pheasant in it's mouth.
Even though he was closely pursued he still had time for lunch.

Back in the 'seventies I'd hired my brother to pump a lease for me. During a real bad cold spell, he got to picking up dead doves all over the place. Seems like he wound up with 20 or 30 of 'em, which he dressed,cooked, and ate.

Bobwhites will rustle up something to eat, while a dove will just sit on a limb until he freezes to death.

After a prolonged ice and snow storm years ago, I took one of my bird dogs out just to get an idea how many quail had survived. To my surprise, we got into lots of birds, so I killed a couple to see what they were eating.

Their craws were full of a strange looking "grain" that I couldn't ever remember seeing before. I called TP&W and described it to the guy on the phone.

He said it was grasshopper eggs!

I was hunting alongside the Little Wichita River and the banks of the river weren't frozen hard. The quail had discovered they could scratch down and find the eggs laid by the grasshoppers.

You definately aren't helping. I was thinking terriyaki over a hot grill.

I just went to end its misery and found it very much alive and warm and dry while holding its head straight and trying to fly.

I ran water from the tap into my cupped hand and after dipping its beak into it several times it drank a bit. Got a small cup and stuck its beak half wsy in a few times and it suddenly started plunging its head in to the eyeballs and drinking.

Put it and water and scratch and rags in a covered clear plastic storage container on the dryer.

Its supposed to warm drastically this afternoon when i plan to set it free.

Way to go Doc.
The thought of grasshopper eggs
never crossed my mind.

Grits? You forget - waste not, want not.

The laws of nature seem cruel to humans. Liberals have a particularly hard time with them.

True!

They don't have a problem killing babies, or threatening the lives and families of hunters though. Idiots, one and all.

The imported Eurasian collared doves don't seem to migrate. They've been here year round for a few years. Granted, we've had a series of very mild winters with no temps below 0 for a number of years so I don't know how they'd survive serious cold. However, they've handled 10F nicely. While not native, they're supposed to be good eating and there's no closed season and no limit.

They are good eating, RC.

I like shooting them at the high altitude they can fly... Sounds like someone dropped a watermelon out of an airplane when they hit the ground.... Heavy bastids.

They need a bird trap. They hang around barn yards and in town and, like pigeons, seem to move out when guns go off. Im thinking them snd the whitewings are keeping the mourning doves moved out of town.

I don't understand doves. At the first cool snap in the fall, they are gone from the Dalotas and Kansas, where I hunt them.
But I have 15-20 at my bird feeder in the Minneapols area every day all winter long. And we have seen a good bit of sub zero weather.

I think the live oaks dropping acorns in town keep them from heading south.

Dovie flew away a few minutes ago after getting rambunctious in its holding cell.

Awesome!

Maybe it caught the bird flu and died.