Bling! What to do with a banded dove

Dove season starts Wednesday, and I think most of us hunters would be thrilled just to get a limit of these tasty little birds.

But what if you get a little extra somethin' somethin' in your bag, a little bling on the bird's leg?

That's simple: Report it! Just read the number off the band (you'll need reading glasses if you're over 40 like me), and report it at reportband.gov.

Hundreds - if not thousands - of volunteers all over the country spent their summer trapping and banding mourning doves so that we can learn more about these birds. The data we collected when we trapped them was only the first part of the equation - when and where the birds meet their end is when all the data comes together, but only if the band data gets reported.

If you're really lucky, you may get a reward band, which gives you cash for reporting it. We haven't put reward bands on doves in California for four years, but while most doves live short lives, it's entirely possible that some will live four or more years. (We learned during our banding training that someone once recovered a 32-year-old banded dove - astonishing!)

So, what else should you do with your banded dove? Eat it, of course!

I know a lot of people like to breast out their doves, but I strongly recommend dressing them whole, which takes about 2.3 seconds per bird, so you don't waste a bit of that tasty meat. (Really, the legs are the best part.)

To dress a dove, pluck the body and legs, clip off the head and wings with kitchen shears, clip off the tail to open the body cavity, then insert two fingers to scoop out the innards. Rinse, and you're done.

To cook them ... well, you know me, Boyfriend does all the cooking in our house, so I recommend you click over to his dove recipes.

My favorite - shown in the photo here - is Grilled Dove a la Mancha. The short version is that you salt the bird, stuff the body cavity with bay and sage leaves, paint the skin with bacon fat, grill, paint some more, dust with smoked paprika and serve (click through to the recipe for complete details). It tastes so good you'll never want to breast out this little bird again.

Have a great season!

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

High Adventure: Tales of a Suburban Dove-Banding Warrior Goddess

"Oh yeah," I whispered as I peered through binoculars into our front yard.

"Oh yeah, baby. You know you want it. Just a few more inches..."

Behind me, I heard the sound of Boyfriend's footsteps pause in the hallway behind my home office.

"What, are you working for a phone sex company now?" he asked.

"Hell no - if I were, I'd be making a lot more money," I retorted.

I backed slowly away from the window and turned to him. "I've got three working the trap, and one is in the chute, but he keeps backing out."

Yep. I'm doing what is strictly forbidden for most people. Read more...
I'm baiting, trapping, banding and examining migratory birds - mourning doves - as an authorized agent of the California Department of Fish and Game.

And wow, is it deliciously fun! Not that I'm eating them. Even though they look very tasty. That would be very, very illegal.

This all came about when I got an email from Bill Templin of the North Area Sportsmen's Association mentioning that DFG was looking for people interested in banding. All I had to do was attend a brief class conveniently located just a few miles from my house.

After my experience last summer banding ducks in the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges, I knew right away this was something I wanted to do, particularly as DFG made it clear you could band in your own yard if you wanted to.

We have TONS of doves in our neighborhood year-round. This would be a chance to see them very close, and contribute to the body of knowledge about these birds. One thing the biologists are interested in learning is what the urban dove population is like, so I fit into the study perfectly.

And even with just one week of banding under my belt, I'm learning a lot too. For example:

1. My front yard is perfect for this. Boyfriend and I have an unusual front yard: We stripped out the front lawn a couple years ago, covered most of the soil with landscape paper and mulch and left a few drought-tolerant plants that don't require much - if any - watering, once established. And oh yeah, Boyfriend fancies himself to be a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, so he's always spreading wildflower seed in the front yard.

All spring, the yard is a riot of color, filled with poppies, California poppies, two-toned tidy tips and some other random lovely flowers. For about two months, the whole neighborhood gawks appreciatively. Then in June, all the flowers go to seed and die, and the neighbors all wish to hell I'd clean that crap up.

So I do. And that makes it PERFECT for doves. As soon as I start pulling the dead flowers, the doves can't wait to get in there, because it is 1) very open, and they like being able to see predators, 2) a perfect color - they blend in with the mulch, and 3) loaded with seed. They'd come to our yard even if I weren't baiting, but when I throw big, bright piles of safflower on the ground, that really seals the deal.

2. Doves can be infuriating. Witness this:

What we have here is one in the trap, which is a simple wire cage; one in the funnel-tipped chute, which works like a lobster trap - easy to get through from the outside, but much harder to find the exit once you're inside; and one outside. This was my first or second day of banding, and Boyfriend and I watched this scene from the living room.

When I saw that second dove in the chute, I thought to myself, "Score! A two-fer!" So I waited for that one to go in. Then he backed out. And then, I'll be damned, the one in the trap actually found his way out. WTF?

After that, I resolved to be less greedy: The minute I see one in the trap, I go band it.

3. Banding ain't easy. The bands are tiny, which is one reason you see me wearing my "Yes, I'm Over 40" reading glasses. The birds squirm a lot when you hold them, which can send an unclamped band flying. Getting the pliers around the band without knocking it off and without accidentally clamping a toe or something is tough.

Here's the drill:

First, before you collect any other data, band the bird:


Next, check for signs on the wing that indicate age:


Record your observations:


Set that bird free!


Most of the time it goes well and the biggest problem is whether you can actually determine the age and sex of the bird. That isn't really a problem, though. They drilled into our heads that "unknown" is a perfectly acceptable answer, that just knowing that this dove was alive in this location on this date is important information.

But one day I made a huge mistake: The band wasn't quite clamped all the way, and I know that rough edges can be really bad for the bird's leg (I know on ducks, it can end up severing their poor little feet off). So I used the tip of the pliers, not the rounded portion for clamping, to seal it a little tighter. I was horrified when one edge of the band slipped under the other, and in zero seconds flat, the band was wrapped tightly around the bird's leg.

Panic! If I let this bird fly with the band like that, I had NO doubt it would ultimately amputate its little leg. I had to do something.

I couldn't hold onto the bird with one hand and get any traction on the band, so I called out Boyfriend.

He couldn't undo it by hand, so he went looking for a variety of frightening tools that looked like they could crush the poor bird, which, not surprisingly, was not happy.

Sweat poured off of both of us as we worked to undo my big mistake. Finally, a combination of regular pliers and needle-nosed pliers did the trick, miraculously without harming the bird. I quickly clamped a fresh band on the poor little guy and let him go.

I'd had a back-up plan, which I was later able to confirm was a good one: Put the bird in a paper bag (which I learned when rescuing a robin that smacked into our kitchen window - it provides a calm, semi-dark refuge), then find my closest wildlife rehab center, or absent that, a veterinarian. Good to know, but I won't be using the tips of my banding pliers EVER AGAIN.

4. I'm not the only one who loves doves.

I really love doves. When I watch them with binoculars as they work my traps, I notice that they look particularly plump. When I'm done banding, I cup my hands in front of my face and inhale deeply - doves have a distinctive, spicy aroma, even fully clothed. That's the kind of aromatherapy I'm talkin' about, baby!

But one day while my traps were set, I went out to bring in the garbage cans from the street. When I did, I spooked our indoor-outdoor cat-friend, Harlequin, who'd been reclining in the shade of a neighbor's car.

That's funny - she usually doesn't spend time in the front yard.

Then I noticed two other neighborhood cats under the same car - Shiloh and Blue Cat, both toms, not normally the type to congregate. What the hell were they all doing together?

Oh, I see how it is. They were hoping to get to the doves before I could.

Legally, I only have to check the traps every hour. Because it's easy - and fun - to monitor them from my house, I actually check every five or 10 minutes, and if I see doves in the yard, I'll watch more obsessively.

But now that I've seen all the neighborhood cats taking a sudden interest in our front yard, I monitor the traps very closely for the birds' protection.

Just last night, I was picking a young-of-the-year dove out of my trap when Allie - the fuzzy cat pictured above - caught wind of the commotion and came running over to me.

"HANK!!!" I yelled toward the house. "Hank! Come help!"

Fortunately, Allie is not a disciplined huntress, so Boyfriend was able to lure her away with some scritching while I clamped on the band, confirmed the bird's age and released it. Whew! Stoopid cats!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Naturally, I'm feeling pretty protective about these birds, so it leaves me somewhat melancholy knowing that in 49 days, they'll be legal game for armed humans, if they bother to fly out of our little seed-laden suburban area into territory where people can shoot them.

Hell, I could end up shooting one of them. Like I said, I love doves. They're tasty.

But I still love being part of this process. Just like when I was banding ducks last summer, I find it refreshing to be able to handle them and get close to them while they're still alive. Normally, any wild animal I find in my hands is dead and bloody.

And I really like knowing that I'm helping to provide vital data.

You can help too. If you'd like to band doves in California next year (too late this year), check with DFG for classes held between March 1 and June 1.

And this year, if you shoot a banded dove, or if you're not a hunter and you find one dead, please make sure you report it. There's a new website that centralizes reporting: www.reportband.gov. And yes, if you're my age, you'll need reading glasses to see the band number.

It's worth checking for that bling, because four years ago, they banded a bunch of doves with reward bands - the kind that pay $100 or so when you report them. While most doves don't live that long, they can - someone once found a banded dove that was thirty-two years old.

While you're at it, I wouldn't mind if you let me know about it too. There's no provision for us banders to find out when, where and how our banded birds are found, but I really want to know. So if you get one anywhere on the West Coast this year, it wouldn't hurt to leave a comment here or email me with the band number.

Helping science is good and all, but it's the personal connection that makes this worthwhile.

Update: Sitting in the kitchen, I just saw two doves come in for a landing on the roof of the shed in our back yard. Binoculars confirmed it: They were two of my banded babies!


Fifteen minutes later, they and another friend headed to the front yard, finally in shade from today's blistering sun, to do some feeding. It wasn't long before one was in the trap. I plucked him out and he had a band too - just trapped him yesterday, and he was already back in the trap. Not too bright, that one. But pretty nonetheless.

© Holly A. Heyser 2010

Alien abduction and the other duck season

My summer vacation was killing me. I was working my butt off on freelance assignments, getting into that morning-noon-and-night slavery mode. I needed a break.

So what did I do? I drove five hours north to - you guessed it! - do more work.

And it turned out to be one of the best vacations I've ever had.

Last fall when I went duck hunting a couple times with my friend Brent up at the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, he talked a lot about the volunteer work hunters do up there in the summer - duck banding and botulism control. "You should come up!" he said.

Now, I already contribute to and do volunteer work for California Waterfowl - mostly writing and organizing. But I've never done any hands-on work with the ducks, and it felt like it was time. I told Brent I was in.

* * *

The first night we did banding, it was just like going on my first hunt. I had no idea what to expect. I just knew the vague outlines of the drill: We'd zoom around on airboats looking for ducks. The driver would spotlight ducks, rendering them dazed and confused. We would net the ducks like fish. When we had enough in our crate, we'd bring them back to shore to be banded. Then we'd release them, a little stressed out, but not worse for the wear.

You know. Kind of like an alien abduction.

Here's how it looked when fellow volunteer Kelly was on the net:





The only thing that baffles me now is how I failed to recognize how amazingly fun this would be.

It was hunting without the kill. It took skill to net the ducks - they weren't so dazed that they couldn't manage lots of evasive maneuvers when those nets came at them. There was lots of laughing every time they outsmarted us.

But there was also a huge element of playing Santa Claus.

The ducks we were catching would be sporting jewelry when we released them back into the water. Bling was everywhere for us that night, so it wasn't special to us. But any hunter who brings down one of these birds, be it on opening weekend or in seven years, will be delighted to find the band. (Hunters, if you get a duck banded the night of Aug. 5-6 at the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, it might just be a duck I handled that night.)

Personally, I've never gotten a banded bird before. I sure wouldn't mind getting one. And it would be amazing to get one that I helped band. (It's not that crazy of an idea - it's happened to Brent a couple times.)

With that in mind, I had a special mission that night.

The folks from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who were running this operation were targeting gadwall, but of course we could bring in any duck we could get.

I wanted spoonies.

I love the Northern Shoveler. I've always liked underdogs, and the spoonie is just that, mocked for its ridiculous bill, denigrated - often unfairly - for its taste. I think it would be the coolest thing in the world to get a banded spoonie.

So I did my best to net them. I don't even care if I get a banded spoonie myself. I just like the idea of some hunter who thinks he's just "settled" for a spoonie getting a happy surprise.

And, funny thing: On the hunt, I've learned that a wounded spoonie is the wiliest bird ever, the most likely to escape capture. That night, I found out they're just as hard to net when you're spotlighting 'em. It took me several tries each time.

But I was successful, as were other netters. I'm pretty sure we banded at least three or four spoonies that night.

When we finally wrapped up for the evening around 1:30 a.m., Colin Tierney - a contract bander for Cal Waterfowl - told me he and his sidekick Jeremiah Heise would be going out again on their own for the next few days. I could come along if I wanted.

Oh yeah, I wanted.

* * *

Colin and Jeremiah were using a different method: At night, they were putting out traps baited with wheat - kind of like giant lobster traps designed to funnel birds in but make it hard for them to get out. Then in the morning, they'd check the traps and start banding.

They were targeting mallards, and whenever they'd find a good adult drake, they'd slap a $100 reward band on him. (Hunt, Eat, Live! wrote about those bands last season - click here to check out that post.)

Strangely enough, getting the birds out of that trap in broad daylight was even crazier than netting them in the dark. Here's what I mean:




Yeah. The second you walk in, the ducks start flapping around like crazy, spraying you with water. You crowd them into a corner, and just when you reach one of them, they dive and swim away from you, hidden from view by the murky water.

Funny thing is as much as they don't like being nabbed like that, they must not mind too much, because they will go into traps over and over and over - easily one-third of the birds in the traps already had bands.

Those that didn't got the treatment: Check the age and condition of the bird by inspecting the wings. Take some measurements. Clamp on a band. Weigh the bird. If he's got enough feathers to fly (many birds are still molting), give him a little send off. If not, put him back in the crate to be escorted to the water when the whole batch was done.

Here's what that looked like:



Man, it was fun.

Normally when I'm handling ducks, it's because I've killed them, which is a bittersweet moment. But on this day, I wouldn't be taking them home with me - I wanted them to go on and thrive - so I handled them tenderly, uttering soothing endearments in hopes it would ease the irritation and indignity of their ordeal.

It was nice to handle them and admire them in this context. This was the first time that my relationship with the ducks involved giving, not just taking.

* * *

For my last day in the area, Brent and I planned to go out and do botulism control.

Botulism breaks out at the refuge every summer when water levels start to drop and water temperatures rise, creating perfect conditions for the botulism bacteria. Ducks start to sicken and die. When the dead ones float on the water, flies lay eggs on them. The resulting maggots look yummy to ducks, who stop by for a bite to eat. But those maggots are loaded with concentrated botulism toxin - it takes just three or four to kill a perfectly healthy duck.

You can't get rid of the bacteria completely, but you can really limit how many ducks die by patrolling the refuges and picking up the stinking, rotting carcasses of dead ducks. That was what we'd be doing that day.

Strangely enough, I was looking forward to this part of the trip because I knew my actions could well save more ducks than I could possibly kill this coming season.

But alas, the weather had been cool, so botulism had not become a problem yet. We picked up three carcasses that may or may not have been casualties of botulism: a pelican, a coot and a grebe.

So our botulism patrol ended up being more of a tour of Tule Lake and a preview of the ducks we'll be seeing this coming waterfowl season. We were able to get a great view, because a lot of the poor ducks are still molting and can't fly away, so they flap pathetically across the water in the face of an oncoming boat:


Lotsa canvasbacks on that lake!

* * *

That was all more than a week ago now. The freelance deadlines have closed in on me again. My day job is about to hit me like a ton of bricks too: School starts Aug. 31. And fall hunting is just around the corner. Doves on Sept. 1, ducks on Oct. 24. We're getting pretty birdy around here.

But this trip was - and remains - a huge bright spot in a very hectic summer, a time of giving to help balance out the time of taking. Many thanks to Brent and his wife Suzy for putting me up (and putting up with me) so I could have this opportunity.

And come January, when the waterfowl season comes to its melancholy end, I won't immediately start thinking about the next October. Instead, I'll be thinking about the next summer.

And I'll be smiling.

© Holly A. Heyser 2009