4 Starlings in 25 seconds (maybe less)

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Dave

Dave

Member
Jun 20, 2015
416
11
Ohio, United States
I came home from work early today to a nice surprise. Before I take my dog outside I always look out the back window, and today two starlings were perched about 30 yards out. I got my .25 marauder and got the first bird. As it fell the other flew off but two more landed to see what was going on. I quickly shot the second and before the third knew what happened he was on his way down also. Meanwhile either the bird that flew away at beginning of this or maybe a totally different one landed, which quickly was following the rest in a death spiral to the ground. I was just amazed how quick this happened.

If anyone has similar experience either with bird or other pest please share it please.
 
I had something like that happen to me last spring/summer, out in my front yard looked to be a family of starlings (4 of them). Cracked open the front door and set up for a 20 foot shot, and down when the first one, the other three flew up in a tree. Now this must of been the mother or something, she flapped twice before expiring, which cause one to fly back down immediately to see what was going on with his mate, and by then i had already reloaded for a follow up shot, and down he went as well. With his demize i reloaded and waited and with in 30 second or less the third one came down to see why the other two where just chilling in the grass so I sent him into the after life as well. The last one never came out of the tree, but never flew away, just sat there squaking, reloaded and realized it had to be a family unit and he was calling in surrender; "crack" was the sound of the 16 grain JSB ripping his chest open and sending him to the after life to be with his family. This is very unusable behavior for these birds, but it does happen.
 
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This is a little different but I was watching 3 squirrels chasing around a large pecan tree at my place. They used to chew the wood trim on my house. I have since replaced 75% of it and have defended my home with a RWS 34 in 22 and upgraded to a Marauder in 25. If you know squirrels you know what was going on. This took less than one minute. I shot the trailing male with a head shot. The others didn't seem to care. The lead male mounted the female and fell to a heart-lung shot. The female looked down at her man and the last thing that went through her ratty mind came out of a tin of JSB Kings. Magazine feed guns are the way to go.
 
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Magazine feed guns are the way to go.
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That's what I was going to say. :) However, I was using a single shot PCP when I found myself in a similar situation. So 25 seconds were an impossible mission for me. But still, I managed to take 6 crows down in about 2 minutes. The tree was about 60 yds/ ~55 m, so they couldn't hear the shots and they couldn't see me either. If I was standing closer, they would have all flied away (crows are very smart). In conclusion, besides "Magazine feed guns", I would add Silencers too :)
 
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I splashed one with my .177 cal. Beeman /Theoben Improved C1, then just like your situation , another came over to see what was happening , spashed it.

I killed about 18 starlings that year in my backyard, all from the same flock, now it appears that the adult birds in the flock have a "no-fly zone" over and in my kill area. Smart birds but oh so nasty. My cats won't even eat them!

Good Hunting
 
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I think Ginuwine 1969 got it right when he said it was family affair. After the birds where recovered for disposal I noticed 2 adults and 2 fledglings. Also I just shot an adult starling at 72 yards just a minute ago it had probably 15 to 20 other birds with it, and they displayed similar behavior.The fledgling would start to fly off, get a couple feet off of ground and then land again. I watched as they did it 6 or more times and then completely flew off.
For those bent on getting as many starlings as possible keep an eye out for this behavior and see if it helps increase your numbers during fledgling season.
 
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When I'm not hunting ground squirrels, Starlings fill the gap nicely. When they're migrating through the South Bay Area, plenty of them show up around my back yard as they are attracted to the cat food I put out for my outdoor cats.

Seated on a Caldwell shooting table at my 50-yard backyard range, I can swivel around to easily target 3 fence lines where they love to "stage" before making a run at the cat food. Starting at 5:48 in a backyard shooting video I made a few years ago, you'll see 4 Starlings taken (in graphic slow motion) in the span of about 10 minutes. The rifle used was my .22 Daystate Airwolf (recently sold) shooting JSB 18.1s at ~ 935 fps. This clip always amazes me how much impact concussion 35 ft-lbs can deliver on a starling!

 
 
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I own two houses next to each other and its been plagued with starlings they are nesting in the porch, last week I caught one on the edge of the roof so i loaded my benjamin trail np2 and took a 20 yard shot smacked it straight in the chest the rest of the starlings watched as it went down and they all flew off and havnt been back as yet.
 
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My first adventures as an adult (?) with an airgun started about 4 years ago when I had an infestation of magpies in my trees, cleaning out the nests of the songbirds and making a racket. One day there were about a dozen in a mature ash tree screaming at each other. I found my old Crosman classic pump, put a drop of oil on the piston washer and walked out to a fence 40 feet from the trunk of the tree. I rose up from behind the 6 foot fence and shot one. Its foot stuck in the branch and the others gathered around to see how and why he was hanging upside down. I shot 5 more with that single shot pump while they were yelling at him (and perhaps trying to decide if they could now eat their former friend.) I had so much fun that I now own about 15 airguns, all better than that Crosman pump, but I have never had a day to equal that one. For some reason magpies now roost in trees about half a block from my yard and I am lucky to shoot 6 in a year. The songbirds on the other hand have returned and even seem to prefer my yard.
 
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"tSH"
Magazine feed guns are the way to go.
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That's what I was going to say. :) However, I was using a single shot PCP when I found myself in a similar situation. So 25 seconds were an impossible mission for me. But still, I managed to take 6 crows down in about 2 minutes. The tree was about 60 yds/ ~55 m, so they couldn't hear the shots and they couldn't see me either. If I was standing closer, they would have all flied away (crows are very smart). In conclusion, besides "Magazine feed guns", I would add Silencers too :)

Six crows in 2 mins is outstanding. They are the smartest birds and very difficult to fool. My personal all time all gun best was a Louisiana bayou duck hunt where I was messing around calling and caught the attention of a flock of Mallards. Evidently they were as stupid as myself and dropped right into my decoys. Four shots, with a three shot plug, in less than four seconds yielded three drakes and a hen along with the two woodies I had from two hours earlier. A full perfect limit with nobody to share with. I sat back on my mud stool and slowly sipped the last cup of coffee from my thermos knowing there wasn't a rats ass chance in hell I would pull that off again in my life time.

Edit: All birds were shot on the wing with the last one being a particularly fat, slow, drake shot with the single round thrown into the chamber. At the time I was an avid duck hunter who went out alone in my piroge every time I had a chance. I put the time in and was there for the shot.



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