By Gary Joiner
TFB Radio Network Manager

Texas dove hunters lucky enough to harvest a banded Eurasian collared-dove this season can also bag a special prize as part of a Texas Banded Bird Challenge.

The program is sponsored by the Texas Dove Hunters Association (TDHA). It’s a challenge to dove hunters with a Texas hunting license to harvest a Eurasian collared-dove in Texas with a band on its leg from Sept. 1, 2018 to Jan. 31, 2019.

TDHA will band and release 300 Eurasian collared-doves for the challenge. Entries for the challenge are $20 for hunters 14 years old and older. The entry fee is free for youth ages 10-13.

All birds entered in the competition for prizes must have been harvested by the contestant by use of shotgun only. Every band reported also provides information for the TDHA Eurasian collared-dove research project.

Full details on Texas Banded Bird Challenge rules and prizes are available at www.texasdovehunters.com.

Eurasian collared-doves are slightly larger than white-winged doves. They have a distinctive black ring around their necks and are a lighter gray in color with a squared tail. The birds have spread across the United States since the 1970s when they were first observed in Florida.

It’s estimated there are about three million Eurasian collared-doves in Texas. There are no bag limits or closed seasons on invasive Eurasian doves.

State biologists believe that while about 90 percent of mourning doves breed in rural areas and about 80-85 percent of white-winged doves nest in urban areas, Eurasian collared-doves seem to split their breeding activities evenly between both locations.

Eurasian collared-doves fly lower and slower than both mourning doves and white-winged doves. Most of the time, Eurasian collared-doves tend to fly in pairs, rather than in large flocks.