Yellow Beak! (and 2 g-hogs!)

[only1harry]

Got a Starling today with the 850 .22.  Good size too but its beak was black, not yellow.  There were 4-5 of them on my lawn so I just slowly pulled the blinds up and let one have it.  It was 26yds out and it got it right in the back with a CP 14.3gr.  Head went forward and was instantly dead, no movement, nothing.  There were also 2 Grackles further out but kept their distance to 40-45yds.  They probably remembered what I did to their buddies 2 days ago.    
A few min. later when I brought the camera out we started getting some drizzle so back under the porch I went for the pics.  This is twice in a row now with the birds and the rain.. like it rains during a funeral!  Snapped a couple of pics and soon as I disposed of the bird, the sun came out.  Weird hey? :-)

About 30min. later I go out to my enclosed porch for a smoke (on the 2nd floor). Time was around 5:15pm.  I 'm walking around looking out through the cracks of the wooden blinds for critters.  I hear something stirring.  Then to my surprise I notice this very large Groundhog digging a new hole about 6yds past my fence in the back at the bottom of the hill behind the house (about 22yds out).   I freeze..  then all of a sudden right below where I was standing a smaller g-hog runs directly out the fence door which I had left opened and straight to his mama!  She got alerted right away and went down the burrow followed by her offspring who was almost full-grown.  I was like wth just happened!?!  They totally took me by surprise because  I thought I had exterminated them :-)  I haven't seen a G-hog in 2.5 weeks!  
I felt some relief that there were still some around.  She and her young one must have just moved in from someone else's property and are digging a new den for the winter probably.  Don't know why, there are 21 other abandoned holes on my property.  She dug this one 6ft away from another one that was unoccupied.  I grabbed the binoculars because that area was all shady under a tree, and saw the all familar dirt pile but this one was twice the size of most others.  I walked over there and this hole was the biggest ever.. probably to accomodate her very large size.
I 'm hoping we 'll all be seeing her soon next to my new 75-80fpe toy  :-)  I 'll give them a few more days to get settled because I can see the trail leading up the hill where they 've been coming down from the neighbor's lawn at the top.  They all just love my little tree-covered hill behind my house :-)  It currently has 15 holes along a ~32yd stretch and has produced over 40 G-hogs in the last 4-5yrs.  They just keep migrating here to "fill the vacancies"  :-)

[longislandhunter]

Great shot on the yellow beak !!  Juvenile bird,,,, beak would've turned yellow if it had lived long enough  :)

As for the G-hogs,,, glad to hear they're moving back in,,,, doesn't surprise me a bit,,, I had a feelin you'd be having some new targets of the furry kind soon  :)

Jeff

[gamo2hammerli]

Good shot on that grackle. The grackles around my place seem to be hiding from the cold. It's been 8 to 10 degrees C colder than two weeks ago (Rained alot). Usually they would be pecking in the grass around 10am, go hide in the shade from 1pm to 4pm and come back out around 6pm. Now they're only appearing around 2 to 3pm....times that I'm most likely at work. I wonder if they fly south for the winter? Since this is the first year I took notice of them....ever since I logged on to this forum and reading how airgunners have been popping them varmints.....I really don't know.

[only1harry]

Thanks guys. Yes you were were right Jeff and I was hoping you were!  I actually knew I 'd see one or two more g-hogs before the Fall :-)  
Believe it or not I was in this situation about 3yrs ago.  I shot 11 of them (with rimfire .22LR then) that year and I didn't see one for more than a month until September came around..  Their #'s were actually given an opportunity to recover last Spring/Summer because I could not and did not want to shoot the .22LR due to my new and unreasonable neighbor.  By the time I got the Diana 350 on Aug. 30 of last year, I only had a chance to shoot 4 of them before they went into hybernation in October.  

Stanley:  This was actually a European Starling (notice the dots - yellow & green..).  Grackles are a little bigger and are mostly black with some bluish/purple tin to them.  Starlings are unprotected in most states (can be shot whenever) and typically have a yellow beak, unless they are young or young adults as this one in which case they still have the black beak they were born with.  Surprisingly this one was one of the biggest Starlings I have shot and was bigger than most of the others around him which is why I picked it, but you just can't tell by size most of the time who are the adults/parents when it comes to birds.

[shadow]

Great shotin again Harry, she look's sweet laying next to her vermin, grat pic too. Ed