Crow Busters Forum

CroKiLR4evR · Veteran Member

PBS special: A GANG OF CROWS

TexasMatt · Senior Member

Looks like its actually called "A Murder of Crows". Here's a link:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/introduction/5838/

-- Edited by TexasMatt on Monday 18th of October 2010 01:25:17 AM

-- Edited by TexasMatt on Monday 18th of October 2010 01:41:46 AM

TexasMatt · Senior Member

Air time is 7PM on Sunday 10/24/10 in my neck of the woods.

Happy Hunter · Member

Crow Killer,
Went scouting for a while yesterday myself, found one half hearted scrape but I haven't seen much sign of the rut yet. I did see my first decent rack buck yesterday by my house in Canonsburg... only an 8 point but nice mass and tine length...probably wouldn't shoot him yet but he definitely has potential. Interesting he was hanging with 6 does so maybe things are starting to heat up.

Good Luck!

HH

wingmaster · Senior Member

Happy Hunter wrote:

Crow Killer,
Went scouting for a while yesterday myself, found one half hearted scrape but I haven't seen much sign of the rut yet. I did see my first decent rack buck yesterday by my house in Canonsburg... only an 8 point but nice mass and tine length...probably wouldn't shoot him yet but he definitely has potential. Interesting he was hanging with 6 does so maybe things are starting to heat up.

Good Luck!

HH

U much had seen the one i saw happy hunter ;)

wingmaster · Senior Member

Hey Happy Hunter i am in Cannonsburg Kentucky got wrong Cannonsburg. But i did see a nice 8 pointer

Happy Hunter · Member

Hey WM,
Never knew there was a Canonsburg in KY...but nice to hear you are seeing some bucks!

CroKiLR4evR · Veteran Member

let me tell you happy hunter....they are moving.

im not sure in canons where your at....but go spotting down on allison hollow. i call that the deer rederve.lol

just got done draggin a buck out about an hour ago.cousin got one,. 8pt. bout 17-18in spread. not bad. goin tonight..got a monster im after......well see what happens so i can get after these crows

the rut has begun here. it will get nothing but better for the next few weeks though.
good luck to all..

and yes....a murder of crows. i realized i did that later on after posting. thanks texasm.

SHANEDOG · Guru

Hey Cro
Thanks for the heads up!!! Its on tonite in my area at 8:00 pm!!!

SHANEDOG · Guru

It was an interesting show. smile

Polish Hammer · Senior Member

Didn't see this post until just now but Watch Em gave me a call last night to tell me that there was some kind of crow show on PBS at 8 p.m. (in PA). I turned it on at the very beginning (almost). Very interesting and now I see why we have to try so hard to fool these birds. I don't know how many of you seen the special but I'd love to hunt in Chatham (Canada). Looked it up on the map...looks like it's in New Brunswick. You talk about a murder of crows. But I'm sure some of you have seen flocks like this before (Bob A.). I get excited when I see 200 in a flock....and that's real big here in NW PA.

Hammer

Polish Hammer · Senior Member

Did some searching again...looks like the Chatham they were talking about is in Ontario. About 40 some miles (as the CROW flies..haha) from Detroit, MI.

Let them come down across Lake Erie in to PA. We'll take care of a few of them.

KOB · Member

I saw all but the first 15 minutes. It was quite good. It is hard to believe what they can do what they do and how quickly they adapt.

Dano · Veteran Member

I thought a lot of it was a crock of crow poop, they say that a crow can see danger and go back to the rest of the crows and tell them about it. I would love to have one of those scientists in my blind with me someday to prove that theory wrong haha. They were also telling how if crows see a dead crow, they will come in silent, sit in a nearby tree and not make a sound, then all take off without making a sound, why is it that when i have a dead crow 100yards out in the middle of a field every crow that flies by circles the thing squawking its head off and then proceeds to come into my decoys wheres theres 2 dozen plastic decoys and 50 more dead crows mixed in only to get close enough to get shot. I dunno about that urban wildlife experts.

Dano

SHANEDOG · Guru

Your right on that Dano,how about the morning call,I had some dead crows fall off
in the parking lot and the crows sat in the trees doing the morning call like Bob, does man was it spooky!!! confuse

As for the premise of the show,now I know why the crows go ballistic when they see my pickup drive into the field!!! Its like a crow hearse!!! biggrin

-- Edited by SHANEDOG on Monday 25th of October 2010 10:22:15 PM

jd1983 · Senior Member

It's on again tommorrow morning from 5-6am if you missed it.

jd1983 · Senior Member

If crows report back to the flock of where not to fly cause one was killed in the field the crows round here must be def mutes! I also want to see one dive bomb a certian face

Some really good fake filming
now the military wants the crow to do bad guy recon

PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHANEDOG · Guru

If thats the case the crows will never leave Washington,a bad guy target rich environment!!!! biggrin

Pat B · Senior Member

Never saw the show, but have seen you-tube clips of what your talking about. Agree with yu'all.

Shane, about them recognizing your truck. Happened to me. Used to go to one spot and after a while when I drove up they all left. Happened more than once. The next time I used my wife's car, they didn't recognize it and had a grand 30 bird afternoon shoot....

Last year, where I work, the crows raised a ruckus every time I went out with a co-worker for a smoke break (I don't smoke but accompany them). Co-worker said they recognized me and were saying "where's your gun now b-t-h! I now wear a facemask hunting.

Pat

Polish Hammer · Senior Member

RIGHT ON Dano. I love me a fellow skeptic. It was neat watching a show about crows but I took what I saw, watered it down 60% and believed about half of that. I know there are a pile of crows out there and they face danger every day. If they were reporting all the danger they saw...they'd never leave the roost.

I like how the falconer (sp?) left his bird chase one down and then released the crow so it could go back and tell the others....yeah right.

I'm not saying that they are not smart and that they don't communicate but sometimes I think we give them way too much credit (it's called survival...that's what all animals do). I've been out in my decoy spread and ran to the woods before (while seeing crows flying on the horizon) and turned the call on and they came over and took some 7.5 Nitros. Like Watch Em says..."they are like people..you have smart ones and dumb ones". Send me the dumb ones all day long..haha.

I know it's impossible (well, maybe not) but I'd love to trap a bunch of crows and paint them (PETA would love that) and see if you can call them in more than once. You may not be able to call them into the same set up at the same location...but I think you could get them to come back in (after some down time, of course). It's been argued that you can't call a crow in more than once...I personally find that hard to believe.

Hammer

Mike27 · Senior Member

We have been using the wrong camo. Everybody get a caveman mask. confuse

crohopper · Veteran Member

LMAO!

M12Shooter · Guru

Pat B wrote:

Never saw the show, but have seen you-tube clips of what your talking about. Agree with yu'all.

Shane, about them recognizing your truck. Happened to me. Used to go to one spot and after a while when I drove up they all left. Happened more than once. The next time I used my wife's car, they didn't recognize it and had a grand 30 bird afternoon shoot....

Last year, where I work, the crows raised a ruckus every time I went out with a co-worker for a smoke break (I don't smoke but accompany them). Co-worker said they recognized me and were saying "where's your gun now b-t-h! I now wear a facemask hunting.

Pat

I once had a permit to dispatch feral pigeons at an industrial site I worked at. I was amazed how fast it took the pigeons to recognize the red Ford half to I drove. Just the sight of it would put every bird into the air and in a state of terror. I do feel crows are a might smarter than your average pigeon as well

Ted

watch em fall · Senior Member

I think if you let any animal observe a certain situation enough, it can appear they learned. For example, the young bird that scolded the man in the mask because it saw it's parents do it maybe? But I'd say it was staged. Fellows that why we wear camo and stay hidden, it's not that they are genious it is they are in flocks. If you hunt any animal that has numbers, they will be harder to fool than a single. Go squirrel hunting and see how fast they scold you. Remember they observe their environment, maybe we should do the same.

jd1983 · Senior Member

hammer I got plans in one book I have for a crow trap if you are interested. Might want to get a banding permit tho.

CroKiLR4evR · Veteran Member

mixed opinions.....very neat show. they did say they tryed shoots in the beginning where there were to many and they caught on. when they guy let the raptor after the crow and let him go he went back to the flock and all the others went you lucky son of a *****. and im sure they were eyes out for that guy after that. just like you guys said they recognized your truck. all there gonna do is stay the hell out of the way of a guy with a crow killing hawk. they are very smart i beleive. some smarter than others like one said. i mean after watching that indonesian crow get the peice of food out of that skinny glass block. 3 steps to get to it. thats pretty damn impressive. 1 of only 3 animals in the world to use tools to eat. cracking shells off concrete to break them open. them crows peicing off those branches to stick it in a hole in a tree to snag a caterpillar. that was impressive. lol....mayby we just have the dumbest crow out of all. i have had a crow sit in a tree dead silent for a while after shooting its flying buddy. it was the weirdest thing iv ever seen hunting. it wouldnt move or caw....it kinda of creeped me out and made me feel bad for shooting the other.....thats why i went over and blasted it off the tree. i do beleive crows are very intellegent, i think we all have seen some part of it while hunting these bandits more than once. i thot it was nice. i do believe those crows were dive bombing him with the mask....in slow mation makes it seem fake....after all. they seen that mask take their babies out of there nest and tag them.....they should be pissed. like i said ....neat show

Polish Hammer · Senior Member

JD,

That would be cool. You need a permit to band a bird??? I don't know anything about it. I'm sure if you got caught....they'd do something about it.

Maybe we could just spray paint them....haha

Seriously though, it would be interesting to see if you could call the same bird in twice.

Here's one experience I had a few months ago.... I was hunting a oat stubble field in August and was playing the CROWS sound on my Spitfire. I shot 9 birds that morning and MISSED a whole bunch more. Was my best solo day ever but could have been WAY better. SO, a few weeks go by and Watch Em and I go back to the same area but about 2 fields away from where I got the 9. We started the day off and could only get a few to come by...BUT..here's the interesting part.. We were sitting there quiet and there was a crow coming in (well, kinda flying by) and I switched on the caller to the CROWS sounds and that bird instantly flared (at about 100 yds away). That told me right there that they remember things. Maybe not the decoys and the setup but definitely the sounds/calls you use.

Hammer

dust · Veteran Member

if anyone finds this online, I would like to watch it

dust · Veteran Member

maybe I found it

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/

motiondecoy · Guru

On this special it refers to crows remembering getting shot at or seeinga buddy drop in afarmers' field from agun. Well I think that is a bit of an exagerration to last two years in the

memory of a crow.. However the constant gun shots as they come out of the north to one area and they will alter their migration pattern as when they began stocking pheasants in this one area that destroyed crow hunting there. For one people posted their land as hunters were chasing the pheasant right into their back yard and that has got to stink 7:30 on a Sunday morning to hear a "KA-BOOM! " outside the bed room window. For two; the constant presence of hunters roaming the corn fields. man those were the days when flight after flight came down. I wasn't a good shot back then unfortunately.If that was today(as in late October)I'd have shot close to a hundred each time out easily(instead of 7 or 8). Today(again as in late October) there is a small flock of 55 haunting that area period in the fall. And that is it. Sure I could shoot at them enroute to their roost but they all leave at once and it's too far to go to get one crow like that.

I just don't see the huge flights like I used to there. The migration pattern has shifted entirely. I am at the extreme outer edge of it now. Pheasant hunters are the best "scare crow" imagineable, ironically enough...

motiondecoy · Guru

that crow came into your decoy spread to rally for help I think. A friend and I hit(32 confirmed down that day) this crow but it kept on going but came back later getting harassed by a sharp shiined hawk.Now it had been hit so this little hawk could pose a problem for it. It came back to our surprise! We could have shot again but the problem was in hitting an endangered hawk! So anyways the crow zipped off deep into some coniferous trees and good thing too as a more credible danger appeared in the guise of a marsh harrier who normally cannot hope to outfly any crow because it is like a lumbering B-17 ww2 bomber but if the crow was already hurt it could take it on despite its' small feet for such a large hawk.

Other times a crow who didn't see us we hit came right back over the decoys where as despite our astonishment we helped it join its plastic fellow diners with some shot jubilee.

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