This mornings corvid control

[Redditch]

So, was up at 03:13, set up on the field by 05:00 ready for the first flight of corvids at 05:30

Set up with 8 full bodied on poles, and a rotary with two winged decoys on that.

Also had my to flappers ready for the first shot birds to go on.

I had a choice of two fields of wheat, or a field of barley, so decided on one of the wheat fields.

As surmised, first corvids appeared at 05:30 and I had 11 down by 06:00.

They came in reasonably regularly, some singles, some doubles and trebles, so in largish groups all morning, until 09:00 that is.

Then what I call my corvid educators appeared on the scene and set up on a field over the road.

It's three local lads, and every year it's the same story, soon as they set up the shooting dies off. Not because they are shooting a lot, but because they fire volleys of shots at anything that appears in the field, in range or not. Generally between 5 and 9 shots for every bird. The corvids soon learn to avoid decoys like the plague when they are about, so by 09:30 there wasn't much flying anymore.

Stuck it out till 11:00 and then packed up with 83 birds down (79 corvids and 4 wood pigeon).

I only put crow decoys out this morning, as originally I intended to have 3 - 4 shooters spread over the three fields, some in corvids, some on pigeon.

Result was the pigeon avoided my corvid decoys and kept landing on one of the other flattened patches.

Biggest problem was that most of the shot birds landed in the standing crop, so I had to leave those, and managed to recover 25 from the flattened area I was shooting (2 wood pigeon, the rest corvid)

Still, it was an enjoyable morning, and I shall be hitting it again next week, and hope to do better.

Cartridge count was 123, of which about 20 were at the pigeons to keep them from settling (when there was a wait for corvids to appear).

Hopefully next week some of the lads will have a day free, and we can set up on several different flattened bits, and knock some real numbers down

 

Ohhh, and I didn't count the flying wounded, only those that dropped there and then

Edited August 8, 2015 by Redditch