I woke up before light this morning and made a thermos full of coffee before hitting the road for an early morning dairy hunt. I can't put into words how peaceful it was to just stand next to the truck drinking coffee, watching all sorts of wildlife and listening to all sorts of birds, ducks, geese, pheasant, hawks, you name it, they were all out in force this morning.
Today instead of chasing every bird I saw I just parked the truck where I had a clear view of the corn and cotton seed piles and let the birds come to me. Now I’d much rather shoot Starlings but the diary operator changed feeds and the Starlings don’t come around much anymore. But he told me the Black birds were costing him a small fortune. I’ve seen the state fish and game guy down there and his method is rather indiscriminant, he waits until a large flock has landed and cranks of 2 or 3 shotgun blasts into the flock, effective to say the least. But I prefer to single out the males and only shoot them. The first picture showing the Blackbirds were from this morning hunt. I only retrieved about 1/3 of what I shot, I’m getting to old to climb fences to go after black birds, that’s what the tell myself when I don’t have my son to go and get them for me. The second picture is from a quick little evening hunt I did down there. I shot about 6 or 7 more blackbirds, these two Eurasian Collared Doves, and this huge black pigeon. All but one of the birds was taken with the 350 Feuerkraft Pro Compact at 45 to 50 yards. That’s about as close as any of the birds allow me to get after several months of hunting down there. It always amazes me how accurate this heavy little rifle is. Anyway enjoy the photos. And I hope everyone had as an enjoyable weekend as I did.