Better late than never right? Still another month or so left in thel crow season so you never know. I was starting to loose faith
I woke up this morning to 2.5ft of snow, NO power, and some major huge branches down on my property the size of trees. I 've seen better days..
After I shoveled snow for about 45min. this morning trying to dig our cars out of the driveway, I went back inside to take a break around 8:30am. We had no power since the night before, so I was just sitting around trying to give my back a break and catch my breath
A few minutes later while I 'm sitting there in dispair buried in snow, street not plowed, live wires hanging in front of my house, and hoping the power would come back, I just happened to turn my head towards the kitchen window and noticed something flying by which looked a little bigger than the usual Starling or Bluejay. I grabbed the RWS 850 .22 which was still leaning on the wall by the radiator from the day before, and went to another window where I had a better view of most of the backyard.
First thing I noticed was a couple of Starlings under the table outside where I had placed the cat food bowl to keep it dry. Even though there were 3-4" of snow on it from the wind blowing sideways, the Starlings had dug through it and had eaten most of the cat food. I then scanned the trees and saw a crow 25+yds out and at least 30ft up!
This crow was checking the Starlling action on the ground and was probably looking for some of that food for itself. The Starlings took off but the crow remained and had not noticed me. I had opened the window upstairs earlier but had left the shade down so I was looking at the crow from a small opening on the side. I got on my knees on the floor and adjusted the A/O to a little more than 25yds. I then moved the shade aside very slowly sticking the 850 out and resting my left hand/forend of the gun on the window sill. I got its chest in the crosshairs very quickly and squeezed without wasting any time because it looked ready to take off. The CPHP struck the crow and it fell straight down on the snow at the edge of the trees. It landed on its belly facing completely away from me and was still alive. It wasn't going anywhere. It was just looking around sitting there stuck in the 2+ft of snow or too wounded to move but its wings were wide open so I knew it was probably fataly wounded. I quickly worked the bolt action and loaded another pellet. I put the shade up, stood up, and aimed right at the back of its head through the chain-linked fence. I aimed a little higher at the very top of its skull because the gun was cold (the house was about 55-60deg w/no power.) and I figured it was probably shooting low 500's. I squeezed and heard a "crack" and the crow's head went down. The tail came straight up for a couple of secs and down again and it was over.
My first crow of the season that I was able to recover. I left the crow out there for a good 20min. to see if any more crows come. They usually show up out of the blue making a lot of noise, but nothing. Not another crow in sight. It was still snowing out and I figured I better go retrieve the crow before it gets buried. I took a couple of pics and then turned it over to take a pic with the 850 under the porch and to my surprise this crow only had 1 leg!! The other leg was missing from the joint down. It had the upper part of the leg but it looked white in color like maybe it had no blood flow and the limb was dead? The feathers were also gone or parted from the upper part of the leg, probably from the crow picking on it. The spot where the leg was cut off had healed well and was rounded off as you can see in the pics.
Anyway, the 1st CPHP struck in the belly slightly off-center (on the left as you can see in 1 or 2 pics) but it's because it was turned that way when I took the shot. The 2nd CPHP hit squarrely the back of the skull and there was much blood where its beak was buried in the snow. So I got a 1-legged crow!! hehehe
Oh well, first time for everything. This year has been very slow for me with the crows. Last year this time I had 7 or more crows under my belt but that's ok. I 'm making it up with the Starlings
BTW, later in the day my Water Heater broke and I had a flood downstairs! Maybe this crow was a bad omen? :0 When it rains, it pours.. If I didn't get that crow today, I 'd say this has been one of my worse days in many years.. but getting that crow made a very bad day a little better, and it was the 850's first crow!!
