This is not exactly your classic hunting story but I decided to give it a go to give you a bit different view of things so here we go.
Yesterday started badly in general. I was just about to leave to work when my not so trusty cell phone decided to remind me of a phone meeting starting in 15 minutes. Damn, I had completely forgotten that as those guys are at different time zone. Well, I'll have to take it from home then, no worries - I have me laptop here. Well, 15 minutes from the start of the meeting I was getting a bit bored and wandered around the house and lo and behold, the rowan tree opposite our house is full of fieldfares eating the berries. Just a few days ago me and wife were discussing about various recipes using small birds and found few good ones from our trusty old Escoffier - so the culinarist in me decides this is an opportunity not to miss. A quick situation check, boring meeting will go on for quite a long time, I'm using hands free which actually leaves my hands free. So I carefully open the door and manage to scare away the flock - no problem they'll be back. Now I just need to choose the tool for the job. It will be roughly ten meters and I'll be shooting from inside the house so noise is not an issue, although I need something handy which rules out the FWB. So I go and grab the Hunter Sport. I did have some issues with this rifle going supersonic and me not liking the GRT-3 trigger. However, new seal and lubricants fixed the dieseling and adjusting the trigger to single stage made it quite acceptable - so I grab the gamo and tin of RWSs and continue my phone meeting from a position that gives me a view to that rowan tree.
After some 10 minutes the first scout arrives to the tree. A bit nervous and looking around. I sloowly cock the rifle and try to move to a position that'll give me a shot through the door. The furniture gives me cover so I end up with rifle rested to the chairback and the crosshair resting on fieldfare's head. A small movement of the finger and down goes the bird. A nice head shot, I later found out the whole top of the head missing. Good, now it's time to wait for the next scout so I'll load the rifle and continue the meeting. After some ten minutes more there's a new scout but this one is more enthusiastic. It bounces up and down at the end of a twig trying to get those berries and moves around giving me hard time to get to a shooting position. The door is narrow so I have only small opening to a huge tree which makes me move around the room. After some careful sneaking behind the furniture the opportunity finally presents itself and again I have the rifle in rested position. This time the bird is moving up and down so I'll just have to take a real careful shot to get it down. I'm just about to squeeze the trigger when I realize that someone on the phone is asking me a question about something. In a flash of the second I'll have to prioritize, hunt or meeting - well you know how it went. I concentrated a fraction of the second more and released another nice head shot, this time through behind the eye. I saw wings open in reflex, the bird stays still and then slowly starts to fall. Job done, time to concentrate on work so I start handling the phone meeting.
After the work I teaached two of my oldest girls on how to pluck and gut a bird. Each one did their own, must say I'm proud of these little ladies. Now the birds are in the freezer and I just need few more and we can have a nice entree for our menu. Perhaps it's time to take another phone meeting from home :)
