"You've got red on you..."
I nailed another starling (one of two) Saturday. I was going for Texas head shots, and got one, the other just was a bit right.
The latter is the one I want to talk about. I hit him close in at 10 yards, just right of center while he was facing away from me. He flipped over and twitched and I figured that was that. I went to my desk to check something and when I went back to the window, I saw that he had moved about 12 feet and was laying in a puddle of blood. I was about to pick up the gun, but I wanted to glass him first to see if he was still alive.
I found that he was, but what was amazing is that I could see blood literally pumping out of his neck shoulder area. A lot of blood. His "shoulder" was covered with thick blood. I figured that he'd lost too much blood to make it, but I was about to grab the gun anyway, when he jumps up and takes flight! I couldn't believe it. Up, over my fence, over the neighbor's fence, then the other neighbor's fence and across the street where I lost sight of him. Seriously, I have know idea what was pumping in his veins. I thought he was pretty well exsanguinated. Yet he flew off and flew off with quite a bit of authority, really. He had to gain height quickly and keep it.
I'm just amazed at how tough these guys are. This will be maybe the second longitudinal shot I've hit but lost the bird in like two months. I know how lethal the angle is after killing about 200 starlings since Dec 1. Thus my shock that this one could live for 4 minutes, let alone fly off.
Maybe I should have used a cricket bat instead?
M
