I didn't have anything on the calender for today and it was a beautiful sunny, warm day so I decided to spend the afternoon at the duck farm for my 1st serious pest control outing of 2008. The other day I had re-sighted in the Crosman G-1 Extreme .177 for CPL's and it when I was done it was shooting beautiful tight groups at 25 yards so I decided to take her on a hunt. Grabbed the G-1, my hunting vest, my waterproof boots (a necessity there !!!) and a generous supply of CPL's and headed for the farm.
Got to the farm, parked the truck and was amazed to see huge flocks of starlings attacking the grain feeders. There were so many birds I almost had a tear in my eye it was so beautiful :) I got all suited up, loaded a CPL and headed for the woods near one of the grain feeders that was literally covered with birds. The entire flock flew off on my approach but I expected this. I got set up in a nicely concealed sniping position just inside the wood line 20 yards from the feeders and waited for the birds to come back. Well,,,, they never did. I sat there for an hour and except for a couple of tiny sparrows nothing came near the feeders. I did see large flocks of birds, but they were at the far end of the farm, so I slung my folding stool over my shoulders and went off to find a target.
All in all I spent 4 hours at the farm, slinking my way from one position to another, but the only shots I got at any starlings were 2 loooong shots at a couple of birds in a large tree,,, and I pretty much knew I was gonna miss anyway. But at least I had the satisfaction of scaring them away :)
For some reason the birds were just super nervous today and it was just impossible to get within range. They act like this sometimes, not sure why, but when they do it's extremely frustrating. At one point I spotted a flock of about 75 pigeons greedily feeding at a grain feeder so I planned and executed a stalk that took me almost 35 minutes. I worked my way slowly through a strip of woods, crawling at times to get under the barb covered vines, and made it to within 25 yards of the birds, which were still on the ground near the feeder pecking away at duck feed. All I had to do was work my way around this one large tree to get a clear shot when all of a sudden one of the pigeons spotted me and took flight. The rest of the flock followed him. OH well,,, it was a good stalk anyway :(
While I was in the woods watching the pigeons heading south I noticed a good sized squirrel working his way through the top branches of the trees. He was working his way towards me so I put the gun up and waited for a shot. As he stopped briefly on a branch about 30 yards out I fired, but the pellet hit a branch between the tree rat and me. I quickly reloaded, hoping I'd get a second shot if the tree rat stopped again, but the little bugger did something I didn't expect. I thought for sure he'd run the other way, away from me, but he jumped onto a large limb in the tree in front of me and proceeded to run almost directly for me. I put the gun up but he was running at me so quickly that all I could see in the scope as the distance between us closed was a blurry object getting blurrier. I finally squeezed off a shot at a distance of about 10 yards as he still was running straight at me, but I cleanly missed. At the shot the tree rat leaped about 8 feet to an adjoining tree and hit the gas. I don't think I've ever seen a tree rat race through the trees that fast,,, it was quite a sight :)
After the tree rat incident I gave up and went and visited with my friend the duck farm owner for awhile. I hadn't seen him in a while so it was nice to sit and chat with him. On my next days off I'll head back to the duck farm for another go at starling hunting,,, hopefully the birds won't be so spooky..... At least I got some much needed exercise and I did have a good time trying to match wits with the birds, so it was a good day spent outdoors.....
Jeff
