After an early morning dove hunt in the Delta, Salim says to me, "You want me to do that for you, city girl?" Clearly more of a bet than a question. I put on bright blue gloves, pick up a still-warm bird, then ask Salim to tell me how it's done.
I end up cleaning five or six birds myself (not too many, but enough that I could definitely do it again, no questions asked). It seems crazy that I could all of a sudden confidently rub the feathers off a dove, jam my thumb under its breastbone into its guts and peel the breast from the rest of the bird, then rip its head off. But I know how to do that now, and it wasn't as gross as I thought it would be. Here's proof:
