So, that was a bit or a disaster this morning. Invited two friends on what promised to be a good days shooting, BUT, the day started off badly when we discovered that someone had put big piles of rubble down in the lane that leads down to the field. Yep, it wasn't put there to keep us out, but to repair the lane as it it was full of deep potholes. However, that meant we had to go all the way back into garvagh and come around the other way, which I'd never been before, but fortunately found my way. However, it took us an extra 20 minutes, so we were late setting up.
Then the masses of birds failed to materialise, and I couldn't understand understand why.
With 21 birds down, we decided to call it a day at 09:45, and all packed up by 10:30.
However, on the way back, I discovered where all the birds were. Several farms have cut silage grass yesterday and today, so all the birds were on that. And the pigeons had found sloe berries which they were busy feeding on.
Ohhhh well, another day we will have better luck
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If it moves and is legal but also moral, SHOOT IT !!
Had several adventures (hunts) where things didn't work out as expected, seems to happen most when I take someone on their first crow hunt. One thing for sure it makes you appreciate the hunts where everything falls into place. Again it's good to read about your hunts things are slow here in the south and it will be September before I get after them.
Believe you are on target, we started mid Sept. last year and the shooting was good in only certain areas, scouting is crucial. We got bit a few times last year and with temps being high that makes for a tough day in the blind without birds.
Myself I hate hot weather shooting...there's no crows here any more to justify it anyways. In the "good old days' you'd have to be soaking wet with deet to stay out there...but there were crows! You'd get a little sick smelling that crap but you had plenty of crows...in those times hit and run would net you some...back then we'd hit this field and that now today have houses on them. But those were the days!
At this time another way was to cammie up and stealthily sneak through the woods when you hear or saw crows where the blue berries were as this is what the crows were eating plus plenty of bugs and arachnids about...if you saw a spider eating a blueberry it was for the moisture not because of a"sweet tooth"..anyways...the crows had that to eat along with the berries too!
The corvids and pigeon here love sloe berries when they are in season (sloe berries you can make an excellent gin from, called sloe gin, which is a firm favourite amongst hunters)
Find a patch of sloe berries, and you have shooting all day
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If it moves and is legal but also moral, SHOOT IT !!
The "scientific name" for the family of birds that includes: crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies and a few others with strange names I never heard of.
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"Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave." -- Andrew Fletcher 1698
The "scientific name" for the family of birds that includes: crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies and a few others with strange names I never heard of.
Correct :) farmers generally refer to them all as "crows", but crows are simply one or two sub species of corvid.
There are here in the UK the following spices of corvid
so as you see, they aren't all "crows" and the Raven and Jay are protected in Northern Ireland, BUT only the Raven is protected in the rest of the UK, not the Jay.
They also tried to stop us shooting Grey Crows, but we managed to prove that they were A) a sub species of the Carrion Crow, and B) that far from being an endangered species, they were actually in huge numbers in the East and North of the UK (Wales, Scotland, Northern England, and Northern Ireland) as opposed to the relative few in the South of England.
trouble is, most of these "do gooders" and government scientists, NEVER leave the relative confines of London, so decide our wildlife on what they can see from their office windows
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If it moves and is legal but also moral, SHOOT IT !!