I love hunting them, eating them, and watching them. They are thick in my area this year. Don't hunt or eat them anymore unless my grand son shoots one with his BB gun.

Interesting how it always rains for Whitewing season. We had 4 inches of rain on Friday.

I miss the Valley. Rat, you just made me miss it a little more. I should I say I really miss the way it used to be. Not quite as much as it is now.

LOL, it is funny how it does rain around dove season. Oh, and the gnats and mosquitoes will be very pleasant that is for sure.

i've only seen a handful outside in the area between harlingen and lyford and out towards rio hondo. there are plenty within the cities, but out in the country it all seems to be mourning dove.

RGV AG

I have to agree that it is not as nice as it used to be. Traffic and too many outsiders have made it less friendly and too crowded. Fortunately, my neighbors and I, 5 houses, live in a pretty protected enclave in south Edinburg with no paved road and about 15 acres with lots of trees. We have no traffic and all of us like each other. (Well, almost all :-) Our biggest problem is one neighbor's chickens are all over the place and you have to watch out for eggs.

Life is still pretty nice in valleyrat-ville.

Good deal Rat, that sounds like a winner. It isn't easy to do that any more in the Valley. Lots of folks could live like that, and afford it at that, years ago. Now it is a premium. With what is going on in Mexico I look for the Valley to have another mini boom/influx from down south and more urban sprawl, and nobody does urban sprawl like Valley developers do, to spread out around the still desirable areas of the valley.

One thing about the dove population. I don't know of one hunting camp in Tamaulipas that is hunting Americans right now. There were about 25 something camps that probably did, on average, about 200 hunters per season. Those hunters probably killed, again an average guestimate, 300 doves per visit. And that is just the gringo's, the Mexicans from Monterrey and Mexico City aren't hunting in Mexico either. That means that there is going to be about 1.5 million doves not taken out of the yearly mix.

The used to call the "La Plaga" down there, it is going to be interesting to see what the populations do in the years to come as Mexican hunting ain't coming back anytime soon.

I wonder if the Whitewing population has moved further north. I know that it used to be a deep south Texas thing but when I go to Austin I see Whitewings up there fairly often. It used to be that if there was significant rain prior to the season, the Whiteings would migrate back into Mexico and we would be without.

My yard is full of whitewings, those pretty yellow and black flycatchers and chickens. I know two grandsons that are going to have a blast chasing birds this evening and eating fajitas.

Happy Labor Day it has been a good week...Ags won!