B-B guns & English Sparrows

[bowhunter 51]

I grew up in the Big city...B-B guns were not welcomed by close neighbors...
Especially if you shot a kids eye out...Alot of care was needed to prevent
problems with the neighbors...You had to be safe...My gun, you had to push
the barrel in to arm it...It was better than the lever-type Daisy rifle you can
still buy today...My dad built a tool shed in the back yard and it also was my
hunting blind...I hunted English sparrows, starling and jaybirds...I baited
them up close with cracker and bread crumbs...Nearly everyday, you could
find me there after school in the little daylight that remained...I'll never
forget those times..Never..My Dad showed me how to line-up my gun sights
on a target and I took-off from there....I had many thrilling moments of
marksmanship with that B-B gun...I shot so many sparrows that I thought
they would become extinct...I left a few for breed stock,... they recovered...
If you get a B-B gun for Christmas?...Don't shoot some kids eye out!......BH51.

[Brithunter]

Hi BH51,

   Ahhh the Sparrow is in decline here especially yeh House Sparrow. All thso new building regulations, other Sparrows like Common and Hedge ( although the Hedge Spaorrow (Dunnock) is not really a sparrow as the beak is all wrong) they are also in decline due to changes in argricuture. It used to be that you could flocks of thousands around farm buildings but not now, the feral pigeons probably outnumber them them there now :undecided: .

[gitano]

European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and English sparrows (Passer domesticus) are the #1 and #2 on my "Most Wanted" hit list. I will go out of my way to kill them, and with a vengeance. BOTH of these introduced species got their start on this continent by an idiot in New York that beleived that the the US should have within its borders every bird mentioned in Shakespeare's plays. IT TOOK 12 ATTEMPTS FOR THE STARLING!

Both the starling and the English or "house" sparrow have had very deleterious impacts on North American indigenous bird populations as well as having become actual pests in some locales. They are aggressive nesters, and drive blue-birds - particularly eastern blue-birds from the blue-bird's nests. It took a very aggressive program to prevent the blue-bird's extinction in the east.

That said, a male starling in breeding plumage is very pretty bird. Since the outlawing of using REAL "Jungle Fowl" plumage for tying fishing flies, the starling's breeding plumage feathers have been a viable substitute.

English/house sparrows have no "socially redeeming qualities" (as introduced species) as far as I can tell. They usually end up driving out indigenous sparrows and finches and often end up as genuine pests in agricultural areas.

By the by... the rock dove (the "official" name of the bird seen in cities all over the world and we call "pigeon") is an introduced species in North America as well as most if not all of the metropolitan areas around the world. Originally from the "Middle East". We even have a small population up here in Anchorage and I have noticed a dozen or so in some deserted buildings in Wasilla. I think it is too cold for them to get a real foot-hold. But you never know... Global warming may be their friend.

Paul

[davidlt89]

I think it is too cold for them to get a real foot-hold

we have a "healthy" population of pigeons in these parts and it gets real cold sometimes. Consider yourself lucky as this bird is a pest, especially for people who have barns. Neighbor had an awful time with them. finally broke down and got a pellet gun!!!!! God Bless.

[gitano]

and it gets real cold sometimes.

One of the things about Alaska that few people that haven't lived here appreciate about "the cold" is not the temperature of 'the cold', but the duration of the cold. There are several days in any given winter when some state in the "northern tier" has colder temperatures than anywhere in Alaska on the same day. However, we've been in the low 20s and upper teens over-night for the last week. That same temperature regime will last until the middle of May. I do not need to guess that there is not another state that has that length of cold. THAT cold is what keeps the pigeons from gaining a stronghold.

I used to raise pigeons. I kinda like them. I DON'T like the "urban blight" that feral pigeons are. Frankly, if pigeons 'moved into' my barn, I'd be eating a lot of pigeon. They are very good eating, especially grain-fed ones and especially squab.

Paul

[recoil junky]

A great many sparrows and starlings and a few pigeons fell to my Daisy around the barns and corrals. My blind was a 1936 Ford dump truck. I could get in the cab or hide in the box. The best thing was, it ran!! I could move it around the corrals and barns to new locations.

Then my sister got a .22 and it was all over. One shot from that and the birds were gone. I think she did it to annoy me.

RJ

[gitano]

Everyone seems to be talking about the shooting they got in "as kids" with their BB guns and pellet guns. However, I must admit to being so "hunting hungry" when I was going to college in San Diego that I did a little surreptitious "hunting" for pigeons in the alley behind the apartment building in which I lived IN San Diego.

Southern California is a hunting "waste-land". Or at least it was in the early '70s. Counting the Navy and school, I was there the better part of 6 years. I was SERIOUSLY hunting-deprived. All the pigeons in the alleys around my apartment made me crazy to shoot some of them, but even a BB gun or pellet gun would have brought the police in a heartbeat. However, blowguns are pretty darn quiet and unless you know what they are, appear non-threatening. However, I couldn't be seen wandering around the alleys with a blowgun knocking off pigeons either. Ya know, in California, "we don't harm any living creature". Never mind about those hamburgers... But I digress. So...

I bought myself a "Jivaro" blowgun by "mail-order" from the back of an Outdoor Life magazine. http://www.coldsteel.com/bigboreblowgun.html (What we used to call buying from the internet before there was internet. ) It wasn't exactly an "unknown" to me. I had bought one when I was about 16 and had used it on pop cans. (In that era, pop cans were steel and there were no "pop-tops". You had to have a "church key" to open them.) The darts consisted of a .38 caliber hard-plastic bead, and a 6" piece of fine "welding rod". If I ground a point on the tip, it would go completely through a 1/2" piece of plywood at about 20'. Even if it wasn't sharpened, it would go through - up to the bead - a steel pop can at 20'. I was ready to do some urban pigeon hunting.

As I said, I couldn't just wander the alleys knocking pigeons off the telephone wires. Instead, I bought a bag of un-popped popcorn and spread it out in my driveway behind my 1972 Dodge Tradesman 300 van. (I knew some of you gearheads would be more interested in the details of the vehicle than the pigeon shooting. ) I then crawled under the van and waited for the pigeons to show up. It was a hoot!

The range was rarely more than 10', but what was interesting, at least to me, was that unless I hit them in the head, the dart simply went through them and they would fly off to the nearest telephone line. They'd sit there for a few seconds, then fall fluttering to the ground. After that happened a couple of times I was was worried that they'd fly off with my dart so I decided to start aiming for their heads. It didn't take too long to change that strategy. Not only was it more difficult to hit them in the head, when I did, they flapped around on the ground like a chicken with its head cut off. That would completely spook the rest of the flock. With the breast shot, they'd fly off to the telephone line and when they fluttered to the ground some distance off, they wouldn't spook the rest of the flock. The most I ever got from one flock was 5, but that was because I ran out of darts and had to go retrieve the downed birds to "reload". After a few days, they got hep to the fact that "something bad" was under the van. I had to erect a little 'blind' between me and the birds. It was just a piece of plywood with a hole in it that I could stick the blowgun through and see through. Even then they were "nervous" and would fly off at the sound of "firing" the blowgun.

Since I was hunting a local population, I 'thinned them out' pretty quick. I left that apartment before the population returned to "shootable" numbers. I did get rid of the hunting "jones" at least for a little while though. I still have that blowgun. :D

I gotta hunt. It's just "in" me.

Paul

[JaDub]

When I was a young teenager I used to spend summers at the family farm. It consisted of 1000 acres of God`s greatest, most fertile black dirt. Wheat, barley, oats, flax, corn and soybeans were the staple crops......... which meant there were hoards of sparrows in and around the barns and graineries. It was a `target rich` environment made in heaven for any Red Ryder endowed hunter. Best part was that my aunt Mabel used to PAY me............ that`s right.......... PAY me .02 per sparrow AND .05 per mouse. In the evenings after the day`s work and chores were finished I usually had about an hour before supper to ply my trade of budding PH. Oh, the HORROR !!! 8-) I think everyone of us can remember our favorite spots of ambush whether it was hiding in the brooder house near the stock tank or sitting motionless in the grainery in hopes of the near impossible feat of the multi bag - in line shot. Oh, mother of JEEEEZUS........ it was indeed the holy grail of marksmanship. Hitting mice on the run left no doubt just who was the top of the food chain. That said, the ` trophy kill` was undoubtably the monster gophers ( near prarie dog size ) that used to inhabit the farm yard. It was like trying to take cape buffalo with a .223 ............ but that`s another chapter. 8-)
 
Cheers, JaDub

[gitano]

The truth of the matter is: Those "hunts" we had as kids were some of the best hunting of our lives.

Paul

[Fieldmor77]

As a kid, around our neighborhood the english house sparrows were in plague proportions, as they would nest under any loose iron roof sheeting.
And with most house roofs sheeted with iron back then there was no shortage of nesting sites.
Nowadays the house sparrow here is all but extinct, as a teenager i must have shot hundreds with my trusty old BSA Meteor,  now we have a new menace, the Indian Myna, the main problem with this bird is that it uses hollow tree spaces to nest, thus displacing the native parrot species,  they will even throw out the parrots fledglings then take over the nests.
None of these birds will even come anywhere near my place, but just down the road you can here them and see them feeding on the footpath and in the local park,which can be frustrating.

[gitano]

You should start a 'feeding program' for them Fieldmor77. Get them to start coming in to regular food, then 'lower the boom' on them.

I am impressed to hear that Australia has essentially "won the war" against house sparrows. It's tough to get rid of "exotics" once they are established.

With precious few exceptions, I have a real bad attitude toward free-ranging (feral) "exotics".

Paul

[RatherBHuntin]

Our favorite was rats, not mice, these were definately rats.  My dad had a particular aversion to us kids laying around, and definitely to any of us ever saying we were bored, which usually ended up in some menial labor, with no particular goal.  The worst was the extra pile of block from building the house, about 8 foot cubed, that always seemed to need moved across the yard somewhere.  
 
We also had a large pile of scrap lumber left over, and in addition to not weighing a ton (or four) it always had rats nesting in it.  I have two brothers, and two of us would arm ourselves with the Crossman pumps, perhaps overgunned, and the third would commence to moving boards.  Those rats would run out as you moved down the pile, and we would get them as they scurried for cover.  Of course a running rat is no easy target and we missed some, but we had a secret weapon for just those instances.  In a small scale replica of a hunt with hounds, our cat would chase down the strays and either catch or corner them where we could get another shot on them.  It was loads of fun.

[gitano]

I tell ya... These stories of kids 'hunting' are the best!

Paul

[recoil junky]

I gotta hunt. It's just "in" me.

Paul

My sentiments exactly!! Although just getting out and "seeing" is enough nowadays. Except for ground squirrels and prairie dogs!

RJ

[bowhunter 51]

The truth of the matter is: Those "hunts" we had as kids were some of the best hunting of our lives.
 
Paul

Yep!.....sure was.....................................................................................BH51...