Starlings

[GutshotApe]

There are a couple of big black walnuts and some cherry trees in back of my new house. This afternoon I was watching several dozen juncos and other small birds along with a few flickers foraging under the trees. I noticed that whenever a flicker found a walnut and began pecking at it one of about 4 starlings would fly in and steal the nut. I had my Rem. 870 12-gauge and some ACTIV Red Hornet #8 lead shot 1-oz. loads...

The 4th starling is a scared bird. :shocked:



Are these things edible? :whazzup:

[fishin]

I know a couple of blueberry farmers that would salute you. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

[salmurai]

Deep Fry 'em....

[Bill Monroe]

Don't forget to put the plug back in...

[Norm]

Another non-native species that's turned into a real pest. My father in-law has a real problem with them on his berry farm. He get's flocks that number into the thousands in the summer. They cause lot's of damage to the crops. I think they are one of the only species that are legal to shoot year around without any limit.

Wack'em and Stack'em

[Cutter]

[Straydog]

[img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

Nice shooting.

Be aware. These are said to be one of the dirtiest bug and disease infested birds there is.

[KingFisher85]

My grandpa pays me to shoot them little buggers. They get in the shops and poop all over everything.
So I have myself an old Winchester 22 pump rifle that I load with 22 shot shells and I go to town on them little things :grin:

Should we have Jen put this in the trophy page?

[danger]

I hate those things, I got 7 with one shot in my grandfathers cherry tree one year.

They are definetly a non native species, 6 of them were brought over by ship from England and placed in NY central park somewhere around the turn of the century. They don't die they multiplie.

Danger

[Mojo]

You might offer the skins to a fly tyer if you know any. The hackles make great soft hackle flies.

[mcknerkneykak]

Am fortunate enough to live accross the road from a major starling flyway(mid August to October) Nothing has done more to improve my shooting the past three years than starlings. I normally shoot at least a box of shells in 45 minutes after work, almost every evening. Have three flyways that I rotate.
By dove season the doves look like B-52's by comparison.
Oh yeah-- BM-- obviously you've been there-done that. The plug stays home!

[Uglygreen]

Starlings are rats with wings IMHO.

UG

[GutshotApe]

OK...if anyone wants the starlings (4 of 'em lined up now ) send me an email.

I wondered if they had any fly tying use...they look like they might. Looking at the photo it is clear why they are called "starlings".

[Bill Monroe]

Although they deserve the bad raps, there is always the "rest of the story..."

Starlings are one of the few animals that (unlike most of us) have jaws that are always shut instead of open. In other words, they have to make an effort to open their beaks. That's because they prowl through the yard eating up insects. The jaw goes down and springs shut on a bug. They're beneficial to lawns, although basically noxious to other birds and us.

Harvey Fischer used to take us on starling shoots in cherry orchards on Sauvie Island. That's how he kept his shooting touch honed in the off season. Harvey is gone now, but was the finest shot I've ever known...anywhere.

I don't think they're any more infested than other birds. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie is an old English folk song that probably came from a starling recipe...

A well-placed pellet keeps them off bird feeders. They're pretty smart.

[Grain of Salt]

Ok, I will admit it, I am a closet starling hunter too.
When I was young I would hunt starlings in my backyard with a slingshot, I would place bread out on the grass (yes, i was baiting) and would make a blind out of a picnic table on edge, this would work for a couple of days, until they became wise to my ways, then I added decoys.
I made silhouettes out of cardboard and painted them black and dipped them in paraffin (yes, like ducks, the good hunting is during stormy weather).
I watched their behavior closely and found they would send a few birds to the ground first before the whole flock, sometimes 300-500 would glide in to the party, then a few would always stay up in the trees to watch for danger,(me). Very bright birds. The decoys worked great, birds flying by would set their wings like ducks and glide right in.
The addiction became more serious while attending college at Oregon State. When classmates were drinking beer, myself and a friend would head out at dusk to E.E. Wilson with a quick stop at Bimart for shells. Sitting in the middle of a blackberry patch in a rainstorm at dark provide for some very sore shoulders the next day.
Haven't hunting starlings for almost 20 years now, but I think my son might take to it. We
came in from the shop the other day
and the wife asked, what was all over his hands?...oh, uh, "nothing to worry about".
Boy that paraffin is sticky stuff.

[Drakeblake]

Working Living at a house with a cherry tree and working on a grap vineyard I got many many days of enjoyment from these birds. As much as I hated them I loved to kill them. My personal best is 21 in one day with a pellet gun and who knows how many in 4 hours out on the vineyard. I could go through a box of shells in an hour easy. Theres nothing better to us as target practice for duck season.

-blake

[gotZem]

C'mon guys- Shotguns? 22's? Be a "real hunter" and downsize to a BB gun! That's "sport"!! Try and set up and wait for them to attack the dog's food as soon as he turns his back! I've spent hours "prone" under the picnic table! They got hip to that soon and had to hang a sheet over my white door and poke the gun out that! Works great! Ya' gotta' "hunt" the little guys though. They will fly in from point A to point B, then to point C. Be waiting for 'em at point B! Whhhhhack! Pretty fulfilling when ya' are just kickin' it in the back yard. Also try mouse hunting in the garage! That's a whole nother story! You have a nice day!
GotZem!!

[B.J. Lilly Hunter]

I help a friend raise chuckars and pheasants. The starlings hadn't been too terribly bad until last year. I think the total count of starlings that we dispatched in the flight pen was over 800. We would catch them in a bird trap with a whole that was too small for the chuckars and pheasants. That number was just a small percentage of the birds that were raiding our feeders. It was amazing how many there were. Every day there would be anywhere from 5 to 20 new starlings in the trap. And we only have a small opperation, 1 flight pen with about 500 birds.

[Gun Rod Bow]

I have taken an interest in these pests in the past. When I travel to various parts of the country, I would see starlings in great numbers from coast to coast at various lattitudes.

They are a mjor introduced pest.

One of their more anoying habits IMO is that they are cavity nesters and typically nest 2-3 weeks before Wood Ducks do. They will invade a Wood Duck nest and by force of numbers drive the woodies away.

I started my daughter's hunting career with a BB gun and Starlings.

Kill 'em all!

[GutshotApe]

Yeah...these birds are smart. I probably won't get too many more for a while where I've been nailing these. Starlings seem to have a 6th sense and know when you want to do them harm.



Too bad they're so pretty.

The Audubon Society's field guide says this about them:

Another success story of an unpopular exotic. About 100 starlings were released in New York City's Central Park in 1890. It arrived in California in the 1940s and in British Columbia in 1947. Now found from Alaska south to the Culf Coast and northern Mexico.

...they lay 5 or 6 pale blue eggs in natural cavities, wood****** holes, nest-boxes, kingfisher or Bank Swallow holes, niches in buildings, and even in the sides of large hawk's nests. In the West, two broods are raised if the season is long enough.

Hoardes of these birds damage vegetable and fruit crops and do considerable damage around orchards and feedlots, consuming and fouling the feed of domestic cattle. They join blackbirds and feed on locusts, ground beetles, and the like. Starlings compete with native hole-nesters for wood****** holes and natural cavities.

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[ 01-26-2004, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: GutshotApe ]

[Gus Orviston]

Birds wise up that is for sure. I hunted blue jays on a filbert farm (hazel nut for the marketing folk). I shot up the jays from age 10-16. 6 Years of walking to the pond 2-3 times a week, fish and walk back with the 12 gauge in hand.. (yes, the lack of parenting skills was amazing wasn't it :shocked: .) Anyway, it was tough to get with in range of Jay. They would steer clear of any humans, but in town or down the road they would land in the trees in front of your house...NOT OURS.
When I finally got a car and gave up the great child hood days of bounty hunting; squirrels, jays, nutria, muskrat etc... and started chasing the girls...sorry Reel Handel :grin: , the Jays came back and would fly close to you again.

Ah, a 10 year old with a 12 gauge...No way is that happening in my house!

gus

[ 01-26-2004, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: Gus Orviston ]

[Riverkeeper]

I've seen flocks of them in Washington county that darken the sky.

Another wonderful feature of these birds is that they are the main vector for some of our most invasive plant species, such as Ivy, Holly, Laurel, etc. Mark my words- these plants will cause major damage to our forests and wild areas in the future.

I can't exactly start pluggin' em where I live. If we have any berry farmers on Ifish, maybe they could have some of us out for a recreational starling-shoot.

[Ryan Pultz]

I use to have a large walnut tree in my back yard I learn how to shoot as a kid blasting them rat with wings from the tree we would sit out there for hours as kids and as soon as one would land in the tree my brother and I would race to see who could drop the sights from out bb guns on them. I thing years of doing that has made me a better shooter with iron sights

[Fish Hawg]

22's loaded with CB's work good