The bird is striking: creamy gray body, square-tipped tail feathers, and a black slash at the back of its neck. My 13-year-old son expands the feathered accordion of its wing. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he says, admiring the Eurasian collared dove he’s just killed with his BB gun.
He unzips the bird with a sharp knife, fingers out the viscera, and tugs off the feathered coat. I smell the particular, though not unpleasant, scent of internal organs: sharp and earthy. The head and innards go to our chickens, but the tiny, dark gumdrop heart is left under the ribcage, a delicacy for the hunter. We plunge the whole, undressed bird into a marinade glittered with diced garlic.
We’ve been hosting birds since buying our 1950s ranch-style house in Durango’s Tupperware Heights neighborhood 23 years ago. Formerly sagebrush dotted with piñon and juniper, the area is now more commonly inhabited by vinyl-sided rectangles and tidy lawns.
All summer, chickadees nab insects from our garden rows. By late August, evening grosbeaks and robins decorate our chokecherry trees, their beaks stained purple with effort. In fall, pine siskins and goldfinches grip spent sunflower heads, extracting oily kernels of protein.
In addition neighbors from finding out. The Eurasian collared doves come year-round in small, boisterous flocks, dispersing the smaller birds and overtaking our feeders. We’ve become the bouncers with our BB gun, trying to manage the unwelcome guests. Occasionally, a copper pellet, meant to deter, kills.
