I only had to go to work today long enough to attend 3 meetings and was out by 2:30 to do a little air gun hunting. I saw one squirrel run across the equipment yard as soon as I pulled up, but he ducked into his hole and wouldn’t come out again. But while I was do some glassing I saw this Eurasian Collared Dove on the ground under a big Russian Olive tree about 35 yards away. I used a metal gate as a solid rest and touched off the shot. When the pellet struck home the bird simply spun around and flapped his wings a few times before lying still.
I walked around the dairy and spotted a few more squirrels but they were on high alert and ran for their holes before I could get off a few shots. I finally spotted one lurking around the tire pile about 50 yards out. I tried to play the wind and made some corrections by aiming just to the side of the squirrel. I saw dust kick up just to the side of my intended target, so I must have used too much adjustment. On the way back to the truck I saw a flock of about 15 pigeons go down in pen across the street. A short walk later I was scanning the flock trying to find a bird to my liking. The all looked the same so I picked one that was only about 30 yards away and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot sent all the birds into the air but I noticed one with the landing gear still down and running out of power fast. He did a controlled crash landing that brought the rest of the flock down too. I was attempting to locate the wounded bird among all the other birds but couldn’t tell which one was hit. Not wanting to loose another wounded animal I kept looking, finally the birds got nervous and they all took flight. But I noticed one left on the ground, he was unable to fly and wasn’t even walking but he had his head up a looked alert so I went ahead and put second pellet in him. I guess if I wasn’t so intent on finding the first one I hit I probably could have had two pigeons tonight but in the end I felt good about recovering the first bird I shot.
I have the rest of the week off so I should be able to get a few more birds on the ground and maybe even a squirrel or two.
