Not so much talk from the field

[Sprinter]

Ran into a farmer friend of mine the other day tearing his hair out because "the bloody crows and jackdaws are eating more cattle feed than the *****y cattle" Basically he described a scene from Hitchcocks The Birds, with the crow etc gorging themselves on the cattle feed and spooking the cattle due to their numbers and ******** everywhere in the feed and water (the crows not the cows!). He had even gone to the trouble of setting up a gas gun that they were completely ignoring. Sensing an opportunity i set up a visit and blew the dust off my two trusty crow decoys. Initially i set up just to the side of the open feed barn doors indeed there were two already in there and in no hurry to leave, unfortunately they were not shootable becasue the barn is and ancient asbestos like structure and i could see "issues" if i shot holes in it, along the lines of "get orf my laand".

Anyway set up with my back to some mouldy old straw bales with a thick hawthorn hedge to my left. First couple of shots were a little off postcode and just sent them on their way, however my ears did detect hoofbeats so i thought i had better have a shufty around the end of the hedge and make sure the cattle wernt in stampede mode in the barns. Cattle were fine, two horses a field and a half away were going loopy though so i had to have a rethink on position. Settled down the other side of two barns, basically in with the the cattle. This time the thick hawthorn hedge to my front 30 yards away. The crows were crossing the field behind the hedge and popping up to get over the hedge and into the barns. This gave some interesting shooting a bit like slow driven partridge turning into springing teal when the spotted you. I latched on right away and the majority of birds were falling high up in the hawthorn, irretrievable. Took out a couple of nice pigeon too. One was a crosser out in front and the other overhead away from above the barn i was sitting in.

Unfortunately it didn't turn into the barrel scorching day i was expecting and finished up with 14 and 2 pigeon. Still the beast were good as gold and barely batted an eyelid all day i only had to give them a prod once when they were dangerously close to ruining my lunch. Another good thing were the flies seemed to prefer the beast to me which is handy cos last time i was out pheasant pen fettling i was practically eaten alive by things with teeth like sharks, even drawing blood.