First time I shot 2 Starlings with 1 shot. I figured it was bound to happen sooner or later with so many Yellow Beaks in the food bowl so close together.
I setup early around 7:30am because I knew I 'd be working from home today with the big snow storm and all. I got the 1st one up in a tree about 20yds out on a branch that was closer to the house. It was about 35ft up. It landed beyond my fence but with 9-10" of snow out there I just left it out there and took a couple of pics of it from the window. He landed about 18yds out.
Because it was snowing heavily I went outside and moved the cat food just inside the fence about 14-15yds out and placed it under my "picnic" table because the snow was quickly covering up the cat food and the Starlings were walking around it not knowing where it is. It didn't take long and I shot the 2nd Starling that was standing on the rim of the bowl. It took a pellet to the side, tried to fly but fell dead just 2-3ft from the bowl. I snapped a quick pic while it was snowing heavily out and disposed of it and ran back in.
I took a break for lunch around Noon. The cat food was all gone, about a pound of it! I look up in the trees and there are 12-15 Starlings all looking down at the table. So I went outside and re-filled it. About 10min. later the entire flock arrived and walked up to it very carefully. They associated the bowl with "bang" now
Finally 1 of them got the guts to jump on the bowl and the rest followed. Now there were at least 7-8 yellow beaks in the bowl. I picked one that was the furthest out near the rim of the bowl and wasn't moving much. I took the shot and saw its feather move a little and then nothing. It was inside the bowl. I walked outside and to my surprise the pellet had gone through the 1st one and hot another one in the head! I knew there was 1-2 others right next to it so it worked out well. I removed them after a few pics and there was a pool of blood in the bowl from the head-shot bird. I shot the 1st one through the back because it was facing away from me and it came out its belly and got the other in the head. What a lucky day!
I took another break again around 2:30 and now the Starlings were very apprehensive. They would land 10ft away and walk around the bowl in circles. One bird finally jumped in and grabbed a piece of cat food fast and the rest attacked it trying to steal it. None of them entered the bowl again. So I got closer to the window and saw them all up in the trees (I shoot 10-11ft from the window deep inside the room). I repositioned and targeted the closest one, about 24-25yds out and took the shot. It got hit, sort of flew a little on its way down, and crashed on the hill into some bush. That was #5 and I could barely see it and I wasn't going to walk through a foot of snow up the hill to go take a pic. I took a pic of the 3 birds I recovered and left the other 2 out there which had been buried by the snow already. It 's coming down almost 1.5" per hour! I got easily over a foot of snow as I 'm typing this, on top of the 6-7" from 2 days ago (!) and it's still snowing. Enough already!
A male English Sparrow flew in too around 4pm and I took the shot, saw some feathers fly, but it managed to fly away. I couldn't find it anywhere, so the pellet probably just grazed it. I did not re-zero the gun since I brought the food bowl closer to the house (14yds now), so I 'm pretty sure it was shooting high and I forgot to readjust a little.
So that was a pretty good day for me and I got my first double-kill with 1 shot
Gun was the 850 .22 with CPHP's.
