Another quick run by the dairy this morning yielded a new first for the Asian Beast. I woke up and started the coffee, grabbed a few guns and hit the road. It’s nice to have a place with hundreds of targets just 5 minutes away from home. I arrived to find the several large flocks of the usual culprits, Redwing Blackbirds, Yellow Headed Blackbirds, and Starlings. I walked over and talked to the gentleman that owns all the cows and he mentioned he saw a few pigeons among some of his cows just down the alley way. I walked over and saw two of them walking around the cows; I took up a position near a gate where I could get a steady rest if they moved far enough away from the cows to present a shot. Within about 10 minutes they moved away and I had a clear shot. I lined up on the closest bird that was about 25 yards away picking his way through the straw. At the shot I lost him in the recoil of the B28 but I heard the unmistakable sound of CPHP striking center mass. This bird rolled over backwards, opened up his wings and then laid still. His partner took flight but kept circling try to figure out why his buddy was just laying still. I waited a few minutes to see if he would come back before heading over and getting my first pigeon of the year. And true to form by the time I got back to the car I looked up just in time to see a few more land in the same pasture. I started that way again thinking #2 would soon be down. This time I had to go to the other end of the pasture to get a clear shot and the distance was closer to 45 yards this time. Using another gate as a solid shooting rest I prepared for the shot, but just as I was about to take the safety off two more birds landed, one of them was a really cool looking brown one. I decided I wanted that bird so waited for him to offer me a shot. But my lack of patience got to me and ended up taking a big male while he was strutting his stuff. And just like before this bird just rolled over at the shot and didn’t move again. The other 3 took flight and landed about 60 yards away in a different field. I saw the brown one standing there looking my way, I loaded the gun, guessed at how much hold over to give him and let the pellet fly. I held too high and struck the bird standing behind the brown one, but this time that bird hit the ground flapping his wings and covering a lot of ground. Before I could get a second pellet on target it gathered enough strength to fly off, but wasn’t able to gain much altitude. I kept my eyes as long as I could hoping it would run out gas and crash land, but it kept going until it was out of sight in a big group of trees.
Wow, sorry for the long winded post but here are the pictures.
