Let's Kill Birdies!

I was outside just now and I heard ominous popping sounds off in the distance toward the cotton fields.

Strange, I thought to myself. What could that be? And then I remembered....

From OutdoorNewsDaily.com:

Hurricane Dean didn’t hit Arizona last weekend as originally anticipated, and die-hard dove hunters breathed a sigh of relief. Storms can prompt a lot of white-winged doves to begin their annual migration south right before the opener.

The dove season opens on Labor Day weekend this year, running from Sept. 1-15. Biologists with the Arizona Game and Fish Department said the abundant summer rains throughout much of Arizona, and the associated green-up in the deserts, will likely result in the morning dove population being more dispersed this year. “On the plus side, it means you will have the opportunity to find doves away from the major concentrations of hunters,” said Mike Rabe, the department’s migratory bird biologist.

A big change this year is the newly-created year-round season (with no limits) on the Eurasian collared doves. The Eurasian collared doves are larger than both the white-winged and mourning doves. The year-round season commences with the opening of dove season on Sept. 1, 2007 and continues 365 days through Aug. 31 of 2008.

“The Eurasian collared doves are basically bonus birds for the bag and table. This species of dove provides great shooting and very good eating,” said Randy Babb, a department biologist in the Mesa Regional Office.

Yep, the popping sounds I heard were shotguns.

Once, when I worked as a bartender at the local country club, one of the regulars brought me a plastic bag filled with little blobs wrapped in aluminum foil.

"What's that?" I said as the man offered the bag to me.

"Some dove I killed this weekend," he said proudly.

"How do you cook it?" I asked. "With a Bic lighter and a thimble?"

"You cook it on a fry pan with some grease," he said while poking me in the ribs. "Quit joshing."

"Take them away," I said. "I'm not in the habit of eating flying rats."

On a final note for this pointless post, here's a fantastic photo of a bountiful dove harvest in Argentina. Mmmmmmmmm.

Boy, wouldn't it be just great to be a Eurasion collared dove?

Oh, and Rob at The 12 Volt Blog is all excited about the beginning of the flying rodent shoot. You can also find some philosophical ruminations about Karl Rove and dove hunting at The Fat Finch Bird Brain Blog....

A Record Summer For Phoenix, Arizona

From Amanda Lee Myers of the Associated Press:

PHOENIX, Ariz. — It ain't just hot in Phoenix these days. The heat is shoe-melting, spirit-crushing and now, record-breaking. Phoenix hit its 29th day of 110 degree-plus temperatures on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.

The average number of days that top 110 degrees in a given year is 10. The record of 28 days of 110 degrees or above occurred in 1979 and was tied in 2002, according to the weather service.

With withering temperatures like these, all jokes about dry heat stop being funny.

Phoenix resident Ollie Lewis sure isn't laughing. "It's a dry heat because we're in a desert!'' she said as she walked to a bus stop in downtown Phoenix.

Austin Jamison, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Phoenix, said an oven produces dry heat, too. "You can put your head in the oven, but that's not comfortable.''

Jamison said the temperature hit 113 degrees Wednesday afternoon and could climb higher. The hottest day of the year was July 4, when the mercury hit 116 degrees.

"We've never had this many days of 110 or better,'' he said. "So that right there should tell you it's pretty rare.''

The National Weather Service says urbanization and global climate change could be contributing factors to the heat.

Martin Milner, a construction worker who was taking a break from the scorching weather under a rare shade tree, said even though he's lived in Phoenix all his life, the heat never gets any easier to bear.

"People say you'll get used to it, but you never get used to it,'' said Milner, who wore a bandanna under his black hard hat to stop the sweat from running down his face. "Every year it gets harder and harder and harder. This year it's just skyrocketed.''

Marcia Reid, who moved to Phoenix from New York City five months ago, said the heat doesn't bother her.

"I lived in New York for so long, I got tired of the cold.'' she said. "I like it here. It's a dry heat.''

The weather service is forecasting temperatures of 105 degrees for the rest of the week.

I live about 60 miles south of Phoenix in the Sonora Desert. It has, indeed, been a long, hot summer.

And thank God for air conditioning. I don't know how people lived out here before it was introduced.