"Flat Pack" Crow Decoys!

[Frenchieboy]

I have made what I call some "Flat Pack Crow Decoys" and have been out to try them today with a fair amount of success.

I was working on what had been said about the crows flying over life sized crow silouettes over and losing sight of them, so I made some out of cardboard to try before I committed myself to using ply wood and a "jigsaw"!

I set up 4 or them on fence posts along with just 1 full bodied decoy and sat in my hide with a Johnny Stewart Crow Caller. The crows were slow in coming but I did get 6 to fly over. I purposely held back on each shot to see what their reaction was. Out of the 6 that flew over 4 or them turned and circled over again when the decoys "dasappeared" from their sight, offering me a realtively easy shot on them. One of them was a very high bird so I took the shot when it was directly overhead and dropped it so that it hit the side of the hide when it came down, and the other just carried on and I missed with the shot I took - Oh well, you can't win them all! However this did show that the crows get confused when a "flat" decoy disappears as they fly over it and often turn for another look!

Here's how I made mine:

Step 1. I got some thin black faced cardboard and cut out a lifesized silouette of a crow and then did the same again as a mirror image. (Im my case I cut 4 of each side)

Step 2. I used one of the silouettes as a template and cut 4 more from thicker corregated cardboard.

Step 2. To reinforce them and keep them rigid I used a bamboo kebab skewer stuck through one of the corregated cardboard ones near enough from head to tail.

Step 3. I used another of the kebab skewers sutck from the bottom of the breast up towards the neck. This is to use as a mounting peg!

Step 4. I got one of each of the black silouettes and sandwiched one of the corregated cardboard ones between them and stapled the lot together.

Step 5. I wasn't happy with how shiny they were so I got an old pair of the wifes Black Footless Leggings and cut them up to form a sleeve over the "decoys" and held it in place with staples.

The results seem to work quite well so now I will do some on plywood and glue the balck cloth on to them to make it look like flocking with no shine at all.

Here are a few photos of the different steps described. If you have an hour or so spare it might be worth trying to make a few to try for yourself as thery cost literally pennies: