September is dove hunting time. The initial outlook is that the dove numbers are up and there should be lots of shooting in just a couple of weeks.
On Labor Day evening 2017, I accompanied good friend Luke Terstreip, Sr., to a freshly-cut silage field.
Luke had done some scouting and we put out a rotating-wing dove decoy and let the birds come to us.
Now it is time to explain the title of this story. For the first time in my dove hunting career, I saw and killed Eurasian Collared Dove.
The very first dove I killed that evening was dramatically different from the thousands of mourning dove I have taken in my life.