Diving into doves as hunting opens Sunday

If you’ve had a bird feeder for the last 20 or 30 years, you’ve probably noticed more doves overwintering.

Feeders themselves, climate change and suburban sprawl, especially the planting of evergreens, probably figure in.

Doves come with mysteries.

For as ubiquitous as doves are, not many studies are done about them. That’s unlike ducks, where it seems if a dabbler diddles too much, a study is funded instantly.

As usual, dove hunting in Illinois opens Sunday. While doves seem to be everywhere, the numbers harvested at Illinois’ public sites have dropped steadily.

Harvest numbers at public sites peaked around 100,000 in 2004 and 2006, but they dropped to 24,689 for the 2022-23 season. It’s a head-scratcher. I suspect a combination of factors: more private clubs and landowners planting dove patches; the dramatic shift in hunting effort to focus on deer; the steady decline in hunter numbers; suburban sprawl, especially in the Chicago area; and the fact that Wisconsin reopened a dove season in 2003. One site superintendent suggested the migration shifted west.

There are other changes in Illinois doves. Invasive doves, such as Eurasian collared-doves and ringed turtle-doves, have become more common. We’ve had nesting Eurasian collared-doves near our house for more than a decade. Mourning doves are natives. White-winged doves (Zenaida asiatica), which look like mourning doves but with a stubbier tail and white stripes on their wings, have rapidly expanded their range into Illinois.

A short article from the Field Museum noted the first white-winged dove in Illinois was seen in 1998. Traditionally, they were in the southwestern United States, Central America and the Caribbean, but their range expanded very rapidly north and east. The article noted: ‘‘However, it wasn’t until 2015 that Illinois got its first specimen, a bird collected by the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors in downtown Chicago on 12 May, during the peak of spring migration.’’ Whether the dove was killed by a window strike, a peregrine or another predator is not known.

A couple of reminders: Eurasian collared-doves and ringed turtle-doves do not count toward your bag, but you must leave the field if you have your daily bag of 15 mourning or white-winged doves. Report banded birds at reportband.gov.

Mazonia South

Mazonia South will undergo its first major work since being purchased in 1999. Beginning Sept. 9, the area around Eagle and Ponderosa lakes will close (probably until winter) to work on parking lots, ramps and docks, as well as building kiosks, a block privy and a kayak launch.

Illinois hunting

Early Canada goose season also opens Sunday.

Stray cast

Hoping the Cubs make the playoffs to give us more games of Pete Crow-Armstrong is like hoping Chinook keep coming hard into October.