Season of the dove

Dove season appears to have an almost irresistible appeal to those who would like to allow their golf clubs a bit of a rest by undertaking an alternative form of recreation.

Indeed, the stalwart adventurers start their day listening to the music of mosquitoes humming, watching a predawn sun lifting from its starlit bed to tint the heavens with the awakening golds of a September morn.

It is on such autumn morns, especially throughout the South, when the soft mournful voices of the nation’s most abundant and popular game birds remind us of their year-round presence. With long tapered wing and tail allowing swift and evasive light, the gregarious mourning dove gather in vast numbers, evolving into undulating masses skimming across fields, scavenging seed, assembling shoulder to shoulder atop sagging fence and telephone wires, in such numbers that the hunting of dove is to hunt one of this nations’ most common of avian populations.

The sound of the mourning dove is not a lament. It is the sound of a wild soul, rejoicing in the freedom that comes with wide spread wings, skillfully evading the predator’s talon or the hunter’s aim.

Viva the mournful dove.

This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 2:43 PM with the headline "Season of the dove."