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Doves seen per hour in Blinds across NY

mike rossi
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mike rossi Newbie

mike rossi

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So, just how many mourning doves does one see per hour sitting in blinds across NY state in December 2015?

 

Here is a partial report on this years Christmas Bird Count for mourning doves, done just this past week or so.... Note Location and in BOLD first number is doves seen, second number is hours in the blind. As I already said, December is not prime time to see mourning doves in NY because of migration and mortality, thus numbers of resident and stop over doves in the fall are much greater.

 

 

December 2015 Christmas Bird Count Mourning Dove – NY
 

Mourning Dove

NYUD
Ulster-Dutchess 42.0280 -73.9537 486  4.2445
 

NYOD
Oneida 43.0957 -75.6522 398  8.2062
 

NYCT
Catskill-Coxsackie 42.2871 -73.8823 364  3.6129
 

NYSI
Staten Island 40.5833 -74.1500 344  3.7189
 

NYML
Mohonk Lake-Ashokan Reservoir 41.8516 -74.1292 332  3.6889
 

NYCH
Conesus-Hemlock-Honeoye Lakes 42.7776 -77.6161 302  3.0200
 

NYOO
Oak Orchard Swamp 43.1517 -78.3904 272  2.9405
 

NYNN
L.I.: Northern Nassau County 40.8660 -73.5938 261  1.4978
 

NYEO
Eastern Orange County 41.4811 -74.1473 232  2.4946
 

NYSB
St. Bonaventure 42.1082 -78.4844 223  4.3092
 

NYSY
Syracuse 43.1000 -76.0833 219  1.7951
 

NYRC
Rockland County 41.1347 -73.9746 194  2.1202
 

NYBM
Beaver Meadow 42.6757 -78.3721 148  3.4023
 

NYCM
Chatham 42.3797 -73.6461 138  1.4681
 

NYMT
Monticello 41.5678 -74.6321 137  3.0444
 

NYOS
Oswego-Fulton 43.3983 -76.4742 102  1.6518
 

NYRM
Rome 43.3035 -75.4732 78  2.9434
 

NYSO
Scio 42.1668 -78.0667 66  2.5882
 

NYWA
Watertown 44.0071 -75.9843 64  1.6495
 

NYSL
Saranac Lake 44.3167 -74.0730 45  0.3830
 

NYHP
Huyck Preserve 42.4980 -74.2170 15  0.3947

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mike rossi Newbie

mike rossi

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Curmudgeon reminded me to clarify that these surveys are not done from a single blind, but by a team of surveyors spread out over a 15 mile loop. 

 

Actually, that survey method would closely simulate the number of hunters expected to hunt doves and  how a group of hunters would set up. Five, ten, or twenty hunters spread out over a 15 mile circle seeing 300 doves in two or three hours isn't exactly something to sneeze at....  

 

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mike rossi Newbie

mike rossi

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Here is some more information we found while working on this report in progress:

 

We have some data from the Plattsburg region Christmas Bird Count of 2006. Here is the numbers for that year:
Ferrisburg: 579 mourning doves.
Plattsburg: 442 mourning doves.
Elizabethtown: 171 mourning doves.
Saranac Lake: 84 mourning doves.

 

 
Sedentary mourning doves, meaning those that do not migrate, may form winter flocks numbering well over 100 birds. Here are some examples from past survey data:
1) Eastern Orange County, December 20,1986 a flock of mourning doves estimated by counting to be 3,695 birds.
2) Farmingdale, Nassau County, August 12, 1989 a flock of over 500 mourning doves was observed.
3) Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence County, March 20, 1993 a flock of 56 at a feeder was reported.

 

• An analysis of Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data from 1966 to 1994 shows the NY mourning dove population increasing. The data after 1994 up until the present, also shows mourning dove populations rising in NY. From 1966 to 1979 mourning dove population increased an average of 4% per year. From 1980 to 1994 mourning dove population increased about 3% per year.

• Some, but not all of the funding for mourning dove research which was authorized by former republican governor George E. Patacki; was derived from the DEC Division of Fish and Wildlife, in other words, the conservation fund, in even more precise terms hunting license revenue, plus the Return A Gift To Wildlife tax checkoff program. So just why are we not hunting doves in NY?
• Mourning doves nest in “great numbers” in Long Island, the Lower Hudson Valley, and the Lake Ontario Plains. Mourning dove populations have increased in NY for the past 40 to 45 years as evinced by population surveys done by the FWS and other entities.
• Mourning dove populations are more stable in the states which permit hunting.
• The five year state mourning dove banding effort recently completed by the DEC is not the first. Between 1965 and 1970 there was one and perhaps other years. In the 1965 project, the FWS actually funded the participating states staff for the time they worked on the dove banding effort. That included at least Pennsylvania, who was deriving revenue from dove hunting already, yet the “feds” were paying for the time state wildlife staff were on the dove banding effort…. Good deal is an understatement – we are investigating into if this was recently practiced, which would have temporally paid DEC staff with federal funds instead of out of the conservation fund (hunting license revenue)…. 
• Pennsylvania’s first modern dove hunting season was 1946. Rhode Island’s first modern dove hunting season dates back at least as early as 1968, possibly much earlier.
 

Edited by mike rossi
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Doc Experienced

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I have to admit that I have zero interest in ever hunting those skinny little critters, but I also have to admit to damn little knowledge of dove hunting. So, I'm about to ask an off-topic dumb question displaying my complete ignorance of dove hunting.

 

Is this the kind of thing that you hunt like pheasants by walking through a field and flushing them, or do you sit in a blind and wait for a bunch of them to fly by.

 

I know, it's a dumb question, but I have had zero exposure to hunting doves and hope that someone will indulge this one small (off topic) question for my enlightenment.

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mike rossi Newbie

mike rossi

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I can argue to no end with some of you and go in circles, and the result of doing so is the important facts get lost because people read the rear end of the thread.  This is particularly true when complex or detailed info is provided. Instead of reading the links to our reports, many read the rear end. Thus, when someone changes the subject or adds a subtlety, the promulgation of fact and perspective is undermined, perhaps (*) intentionally. ((*) As we indicated in our report "Hunters against Hunters" there are many hunters who are willing to bolster the rhetoric of the Humane Society to undermine certain forms of hunting. Check out that report at this link: http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/hunters-against-hunters.html )

 

Consistent with the title of this thread, we established significant proof there are "huntable" numbers of doves in NY state. The data in this thread is just a sample of the full report we are working on, yet this sample is enough to provide perspective. We suggest readers truly interested in the subject read the data provided which is relevant to the topic of this thread; which is doves seen per hour in NY. We also suggest those interested readers refer back to our website in the near future for the complete report. 

 

With the prelude about changing the subject and  the introduction of subtleties into purposeful discussions, this is a good opportunity to address such which occurred in this thread. One subtlety introduced into this discussion is the narrative regarding the edibility of mourning doves. 

 

In order to put the topic of mourning doves as wild game meat in the correct perspective, we published a three part report on the subject. Each of the three parts of this report can be read at the respective links below:

 

Part 1: http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/lets-talk-about-food.html

 

Part 2: http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/lets-talk-about-food-2.html

 

Part 3: http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/the-9-step-crab-eating-process.html

 

 

 

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