European Starling

eddie 10/22

eddie 10/22

New member
ok i have a quick question, does anybody know if the european starlings that have just flocked around my city again (migratory pest) might be protected? i only ask because they are such a nuisance! they crap on the cars and are so annoyingly loud! i have already popped a few out at a friends land with my .204, which was awesome by the way, they just kinda explode with a hornady 40 gr. ballistic tip. longest shot was about 50 yards, they are so used to humans they will let you get closer but i did have to crawl a few times to get within range. they seemed to like sitting on the ground out in the country. but anyways we just had a news cast about them recently and they didnt say anything about whether they might be protected and they arent a game bird or anything and by no means are they endangered. any info would be very helpful! and i have looked into local laws but since they only come around once a year and dont stay too long usually, except out in the boondocks, there is no law that i can find. thanks!
 
cool thanks man, im out to get some more ammo now! i find the starlings to be like a redneck prariedog, glad i finally have something like that for target practice
 
blew one up at 120 yards today, layin on the ground with a 13 inch bipod, i was amazed at how flat this .204 shoots. i set up a target at one end of a ditch then drove my truck about 175-180 yards away and shot at the target. i had just under a 1-inch 3 shot group, i love this gun. but anyways my count after two days of shooting is 29 birds confirmed dead and a few that there wasnt enough left to really tell if i just happened to have dusted it... nasty stuff...
 
I feel that the starling is a little lower on the totem pole than pigeons!

Both are targets of opportunity and whenever I can get onto either, they usually disappear.

I like using my 204 for this kind of duty too!
Very accurate.
 
You guys are doing exactly what I hope to be doing this spring when I (hopefully) pick up my .204. Good shootin', guys. Those birds are the lowest of the low. They are very smart around here. My experience has been once they see a few get picked off they get nervous.
 
They get awful nervous around here after a few shots are fired.

I like shooting them though because it refines ones shooting abilities.
Hence the old saying "aim small,hit small"!

After a while around here if you just "bump" a window or door while opening it, they're gone.

If they get too nervous though, I still have a 12 gage with a full choke barrel. The old single shot 410 works well too!
 
ha. we had one sitting just out the back door and my friend got his 7mm-08 and... well the details are a little messy but it was funny. yea just yesterday afternoon i was driving into thier quarter mile driveway and i got just of the road and stopped. got out and loaded the gun an laid down, and with 6 shots in about 30 seconds i had 6 birds. then i had to wait about 10 minutes for the rest to come back. the count now is somwhere over 30 and they still COVER the yard. they are just impossible to eradicate. they will get a little skiddish for a while after you shoot maybe 2 or 3 then they calm down and you can stalk them again. just wanted to throw out since we are also talking about accuracy here, my M77 in .204 is what i have been using and we set a target up at 175-200 yards just to mess around. took a 3 shot group that was about a quarter inch left of the 10 on the shoot-n-c target and it was about a 1-inch group, this was with a 15 mph right to left crosswind. this rifle never ceases to amaze me and the caliber aint too bad either
 
Not protected, imported by some stupid British to US for game bird and brought a real pest. My dad used to pay us a nickel a piece for them when we were kids. We used to herd them into a feedroom in the barn shin a flashlight in their eyes, they would fly at you and they we would whack them with tennis rackets. We got hundreds of them that way. They are fun to shoot but hard to control populations that way since they get gunshy real fast and there are soo many.
 
Buddy of mine lives in his folks house. His dad used to wonder how it was he kept getting a hole in the kitchen window screen, never did tell him. But if you line it up over the barn, you'll find that the powerline to the barn from the house runs right over the grape arbor inline with that window. He says I still have the record, 26 starlings with one shot from a 12 guage. Says he got close a couple of years ago with 24. Man I hate those damn birds.
 
i just bought another box of ammo and fixed my F'ed up bipod. i'll be layin in my friends field by noon busting those buggers. might even take my .22 with me this time just for the heck of it
 
Quote:
I tear them up in the spring and summer time with the .17HMR and .17M2s. They're a load of fun to shoot.




you guys just need to throw out a little dog food or grain wait till the flock comes in then Empty a 12 guage in the middle of the flock. If you get over fifty on the ground your a master.
 
Kill'em all. Like was said above, they get smart real fast. I shoot them all summer long but you have to be pretty sneaky about it. Once they learn what you are up to, they are hard to hunt. I made bird houses and when the starlings move in one, I wait until the eggs hatch and then go up to it at night and exterminate them. I use anything from a pellet gun to my .270. Whatever is handy.
 
busted ine at dang near 200 yards today, there was no wind and it was just kinda hopping around. this .204 once again amazed me, i guess after the sub MOA group at 175 yards i should have expected no less at 20 but still. o yea the 40 gr V-Max expanded ridiculously huge i would say after looking at the aftermath. ::shudders :: ewwwwwwwwwww
 
I've shot them with a .22-.250 in the past. Starling scattered at the shot--scattered in a 25ft. circle that is!
I don't know if a starling is worse than a city pigeon (disease-wise) pigeons (like rats) have been known to carry 30+ different diseases (now that's a bird with a hell of a punch!) but they ARE nasty! For example, an English sparrow will keep its' nest somewhat tidied up and clean---not a starling! They crap anywhere and everywhere, including their nests! In the early 60's, Milan, Michigan went through an epidemic of cholera impacting grade school children from one particular school. It was found that huge flocks of starlings were landing and roosting in the schoolground trees. Of course, they left their droppings all over the place and the children, playing in recess time, got infected.
Farmers hate starlings because of the cholera from their droppings wiping out complete lots of hogs and livestock, not to mention ruining the roofs of their barns.
Anyone who loves song birds recognize the starling as a pest. Starlings kill the young of song birds and push away song birds from feeders.
If you want to have some fun, get yourself a crow tape/CD and play it full blast. Starlings, blackbirds and jays will come as though they heard the Pied Piper I kid you not! I've called the three in out in the middle of a woods, close to barns, you name it. From what I've seen, they come in to this sound at least as well as crows. Heck, I remember one that I missed two times with a .22 Long Rifle and he just stayed in that tree transfixed by the sound!;0) It was like he was hypnotized or something until the 3rd shot ended his trance for good!
A buddy of mine who does pest control work has used starling decoys for years. He takes some cardboard and cuts out pre-traced starling shapes, spray paints them and uses portions of wire hangars to serve as legs. He says that they work very well.
A very quiet airgun is about as good as it gets. Something like a Beeman R-7 in .177 is about perfect because of its' superb accuracy and extremely quiet report. My friend uses one and he says that he even uses a dome pellet too because a flat head will make enough of an impact sound on a hit bird that will (needlessly) spook other birds in a flock (starlings can be very spooky.
Although I do agree with my friend on the spring-piston airgun, I have also had alot of success using a .22 rimfire with CB caps and subsonic LR's (solids and hollowpoints) depending on the ranges involved.
Regarding cats and starlings, I've been told that alot of cats will NOT eat a starling. Check it out maybe but not eat it. If that's the case, I'd say that cats CAN be smart at times!;0)
 
I have a question: What the heck are they and what do the look like?

We have what we call "barn swallows" here(Iowa) durring the summer and I wonder if they are the same thing?

CB
 


Write your reply...
Back
Top