Because of the relatively warm temperatures and rainy weather I woke to this morning I knew the Starling weren’t going to be paying a visit to my suet feeders. So I grabbed two guns and headed out to find them. A few minutes and a few miles down the road I found several of them perched in the upper branches of some large trees down a lonely dirt road. I parked as close as I dared and guessed the yardage to be about 40 yards. Seeing that they were starting to get nervous I gave them a few minutes to get use to the car before setting up for the shot. I ranged the center part of the tree trunk and the range finder confirmed 42 yards. First up was the new RWS Feuekraft 350 Pro Compact, at the shot the gun jumped off target butt I still heard the solid thump of the CPHP striking center of mass, I was even able to see just a micro second of impact. I peeked over the scope to see the new guns first bird hanging upside down by one foot. A few seconds later he started his decent towards the soggy ground bouncing of limbs the whole way down. The rest of the bird took off but I knew they would be back within a few minutes so I hustled out to claim the first Starling for the 350. Within 10 minutes the birds starting coming back a few at a time, this time staying out to about 60 yards. I missed the next two shots with the springer but had the discovery ready for just this type of situation. I ended up taking 2 more with the discovery but was unable to retrieve them because I would have had to cross a frozen ditch and with the warmer temps I had my doubt about the strength of the ice covering the stinky black mud that I knew was underneath. Here is the picture of the first yellow beak taken with the new gun. If the boy is able to leave his girlfriend for a few hours we have a raccoon hunt planned for tonight.
