American Goldfinches

[egon]

Shoot a crow with a shotgun -- what's the matter with a .22 ! [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]

As a young fellow the county paid us $.05 cents for magpie or crow legs. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Most years I was in about fourth place or so for quanity. The other factor is some kids grouped up under one name for the total.

Today I would not shoot either a crow or magpie. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Winchester model 67? with 4 power scope. 8 shot clip.

Egon

[Pat]

Egon, Even with shotguns we had a devil of a time getting a crow and it wasn't for lack of trying. They generally did not let us get close enough and my skill/patience with a call was not much.

At one time when I lived on the outskirts of Lima, Ohio there was a $0.25 bounty on crows!

One of my cousins living near Enid, Oklahoma was lighter in build than me and his two brothers so not so employable loading 40+ pound watermelons out of the field. He had a job herding crows. He would sit under a shade tree with his .22 and shoot at crows to keep them off of the ready to be picked water mellons. It was "piece work" with a price per crow and I don't recall his rate of remuneration but enough to keep him interested. Even on a good day he didn't make as much as we did but we didn't sit under a shade tree with a water jug and picnic lunch.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

FEEDER UPDATE: I shortened the perches on the thistle seed feeders and stocked adjacent feeders with mixed bird seed. The blackbirds seem to be leaving the thistle seed alone now. Black birds gather at the mixed seed feeder while simultaneously the goldfinches are getting thistle seed only 3 feet or so away, a vast improvement.

The other thistle seed feeder that I enclosed with one inch poultry wire is visited sparingly by finches and of course not at all by larger birds. That is a mixed success, exclusion of blackbirds but a little tough on the finches. I may still replace the one inch poultry wire with one inch by two inch rectangular hole "cage wire" and probably make it easier on the finches while still excludingthe black birds. I don't mind feeding a afew blackbirds but don't like to have to put out several pounds of feed a day to hoards of them. Situatiion is much improved and will probably be fine tuned for further gains.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]