Shooting Starlings in backyard Marion County

patrikky · Jul 19, 2022

OldBroad44 said:
Crows are smart. Probably smart enough to figure out you shoot starlings but not crows. If you shoot a crow and leave it on the ground crows are likely to stay away for a year or two. They will also remember you're the evil guy who shoots crows, and give alarm calls when they see you. Young crows will learn you are an evil grow killer from other crows even if they never saw you kill a crow or saw any dead crows. Interesting university study showed the crows recognized individual human faces too, so can distinguish evil grow killing humans from other humans.

Crows and other birds are that smart. As I would snipe starlings the crows and songbirds would perch nearby to watch the show. The songbirds would actually land withing 6 feet of me. The crows would fly where the dead starling were still in the tree, flick them into the air to to ground. Then fly back to the perch and caw waiting for me to kill another. Starlings are truly the universally hated bastardss of the bird world.

Mark W. · Jul 19, 2022

The local mink farm shoots what has to be hundreds of them a month. The ground to the East of the open air Mink sheds is covered with .410 shotgun wads. Not to mention dead starlings.

kmk1012 · Jul 19, 2022

Mark W. said:
The local mink farm shoots what has to be hundreds of them a month. The ground to the East of the open air Mink sheds is covered with .410 shotgun wads. Not to mention dead starlings.

Been out to both of those farms many of times for work. Seen what you are talking about!

Lazyfaire · Jul 19, 2022

Have a friend who has a large oak tree in his back yard. Its a frickin squirrel condo building!! He'll sit on his upper deck and shoot the squirrels with a pellet gun. Then goes and picks them up with a shovel.
Best story is seeing a male working over a female, pumping away. Shot the female, which made the male stop feeling like something was wrong. Then in true Bro fashion, he waited until the male was finished, and then he shot him too.

(Yes in a city limits)

Mikej · Jul 20, 2022

OldBroad44 said:
Crows are smart. Probably smart enough to figure out you shoot starlings but not crows. If you shoot a crow and leave it on the ground crows are likely to stay away for a year or two. They will also remember you're the evil guy who shoots crows, and give alarm calls when they see you. Young crows will learn you are an evil grow killer from other crows even if they never saw you kill a crow or saw any dead crows. Interesting university study showed the crows recognized individual human faces too, so can distinguish evil grow killing humans from other humans.

Oh yes. I've seen a program or three on crows. They know us well. There's three of them. Male/female and a bachelor offspring from two years ago still hanging with them. Are there homosexual crows? They prefer wifey and will get close to her than me. They follow her to work. One of them will come, 5'-6' away and stand on the bench she sits at during breaks. We have a couple of scrub jays and one, we believe it to be the female, comes to hand for peanuts.

JohnnyMac · Jul 20, 2022

When I first moved to Ketchikan in SE Alaska, I was talking to my new neighbor and mentioned the damned crows always getting in the garbage and she turned and walked away I got the cold shoulder from the whole family for a couple weeks. I finally got caught the husband outside and asked what I had done to offend. He said they were from the Haida Raven Clan and to call them crows was akin to blasphemy. Damn near fightin' words.... He said when he was a child, his grandfather told him that when the elders died, they came back as ravens, so I can see where it would be offensive. That said, I figured it probably best that I didn't ask why his grandfather was digging in my garbage.

OldBroad44 · Jul 20, 2022

Mikej said:
Oh yes. I've seen a program or three on crows. They know us well. There's three of them. Male/female and a bachelor offspring from two years ago still hanging with them. Are there homosexual crows? They prefer wifey and will get close to her than me. They follow her to work. One of them will come, 5'-6' away and stand on the bench she sits at during breaks. We have a couple of scrub jays and one, we believe it to be the female, comes to hand for peanuts.

In some birds youngsters stay around and help parents raise the next brood or two before setting up on their own. Actually, social homosexuality is pretty common in birds, as is cheating. Scientists merely assumed that pairs were male and female where the two sexes look alike. And assumed females are faithful because what they saw was in-pair matings. Well, that's because when the birds cheat it tends to be fast and secret. Only after scientists started tracking parentage via DNA did they discover that most nests have offspring from more than one father. And sometimes its two females on the nest, and the eggs hatch fine.

An old timer and experienced hunter told me deer know that human males are much more likely to be hunters than human females, and also understand the implications as to whether a human is carrying a gun. If so birds might also. Its little boys who throw rocks at birds or hunt them with BB and pellet guns. Mostly.

Tarawa86 · Jul 20, 2022

Mikej said:
Starlings! Quick story. I feed birds. It's about a $60.00 a month habit. Some years ago the starlings were doing their yearly thing with their young, making those horrible noises they do at that time of year. They were scrounging anything they could under my feeders. That includes decimating a $5.00 suet cake. I had shot one off a feeder and was out inspecting the body. I heard something above me up in the tree. At the same time I saw that young starling, the damned thing took a crap that went directly on my open eye! SON of a BI%&*!!! It was all warm and disgusting as hell! Oooo, I hate starlings!

Something that I find incredibly entertaining is seeing a crow, if your lucky, going after an injured starling that you have only wounded. My crow family, this is their fourth year with us, barely blink when I shoot through the partially open front storm door. Seeing those crow sic on the limping starling and beat the crap out of it and eat part of it is great!