varmint hunting...(starlings ?)
 

Okay flipping idly through one of O'Connor's books and reading a chapter on varmint rifles...Now varmint rifles really interest me..my bucket list includes owning a .220 Swift, among some others, but frankly I know very little about varmint hunting and have done very little of it...

But out of curiousity, I checked Wikipedia, and the short piece there on varmint hunting includes starlings as possible targets. Not sure of the challenge here, but the off beat has always fasinated me, and there is no denying starlings are a major pest and nuisance, so without getting into the various legalaties of it in this state, (I'll run that by the Fish and Wildlife Dept a bit later...) but are starlings hunted? It does seem like a fair idea...plenty of them, they ARE pests, they ARE annoying...so...are they?

Targets of opportunity here, they get wild very quick when ya start shooting at them.
RR

We have a Season for Crow Hunting.....those would be more fun/challenging to Hunt in my Opinion! ;)

Called it target practice when I was a kid, standing in the cornfields back in New Jersey.

Now memories.........................

Well I have tried crow hunting...challenging targets for sure...but crows have 'seasons' now...and as I said..I have always been interested in the unusual. Starlings though..that one kissed me off the cushion...(I mean..who the hell makes a starling call? starling decoys?)

Although they may be challenge on the wing...I am willing to bet if you could locate a roost, you could fairly easily sneak in close enough with .22 rimfire to do enough damage to the flock to make those old buffalo hidehunters look like pikers!

I shoot them under my grandmothers bird feed its like a shootinsg gallery, With a 22 auto.

I'd definitely quantify starlings as "vermin", but not necessarily varmints. They're nasty nasty birds.

But like many of the others here, I killed plenty of starlings as a kid with a BB gun as target practice and pest control.

Dunno why there would be an issue, they were brought over from europe so they aren't a native species...there isnt a bird alive that I despise more than a damn starling.:devil:

Not sure there is an issue here. But I found out the hard way, several years ago, the North Carolina Fish and Wildlife Dept is not fond of people 'assuming' things about their regulations. At one time, I seem to remember a line in their regulations that only those species listed were legal to hunt...not listed, then they were protected. And starlings, of course, are not listed. As I said I do plan on running this by them at some point.

But varmint hunters don't have a good year round shotgun target. Crows now have a closed season. The Open Season is very long and generous, the 'closure' was more to appease those Feds who became convinced that crows were migatory birds and needed protection...(Ha!)

But I was curious, assuming one wanted to (to use bunny-hugger terms) murder a helpless mass of poor downtrodden starlings, how you would attract them within range of your shotgun. Like Hunter, I feel the fewer starlings the better, but having them come in on the wing for shotgunning practice, rather than popping them off with .22 seems like it might be a worthy idea.

JMO - Starlings are nasty birds, but are unworthy of a shotgun or even a rimfire round these days. Were you looking for an excuse to purchase an adult air rifle? :)

Ninja Sniping
 

Critters, even nasty ones, are adverse to dying. The shotgun should be fun, a little while. Bet the boom would wise 'em up to the death correlation in short time.

I notice starlings in buggy environments; ie, near a street light or neon signs. In my mind, I'd try mid-powered solar lights placed so they'd catch some sun during the day and shine in a bush or tree at nite. Some have a switch to shine only 6hrs so the battery won't completedly drain and be bright enough after sunset the next day.

Adult pcp pellet rifles an' .17 rimfires should be safer in semi-rural areas due to the lighter projectiles. Guess you could take 2 or 3 per blast with a shotgun at times.

Air rifle + starling = smug grin and satisfaction. They aren't worthy of dirtying the barrel of a 22.

Actually a Beeman or RWS .177 pellet rifle,scoped, would be a nice thing to have...I feed birds and squirrels...get a lot of doves out there..and numerous squirrels..

and knocking off a couple now and then for the pot, would not be a terrible thing...plus the starlings or those damn noisy grackles....

One of my fondest memory's was shooting starlings May 1976 with a 22.
A friend asked a couple of us to help lay shingles on his new work shop 24x52 that took a bunch of shingles. While up there some one commented on the amount of starlings out in the fresh planted corn field.
That got us scrambling for our 22's. Crazy thing is my brothers dog would retrieve them so we didn't have to go collect them to bury. We would shoot them off that roof and they would disappear for a bit so we laid shingles till they came back. We got several hundred that day.

I have a Ruger 77-220 swift, It wears a 6x18 scope and is wicked on the crows and coyotes we mostly hunt here these days. Ya it was stories Jack O'Conner's wrote about the swift that got me to wanting one.

:D Al

A good thread!

Brings back a few memories for me to.

Cracking open the kitchen window when young & shooting starlings off the Martin house, which was about 35 yds away with a .22 Crossman that you pumped 8 strokes for full power. That Crosman was a pretty fine air gun for back in the late 60's & early 70's. I not only killed a ton of Starlings with it, but also rabbits, muskrats & squirrels as well.

I grew up on a farm, and it was set up to first & foremost provide for the families needs, only after that sell grain, cattle, eggs, chickens ect. ect. As a kid we'd have a huge number of raspberries & strawberries ripen at about the same time. We ate some fresh & froze a bunch for rest of the year + sold more at a small road side stand.

Now the local Starlings were well aware of these goings on & seemed to believe that we owed them a portion..........

Grandma one day saw a huge flock settle into a big maple trees that was not far off the edge of that garden. Gram grabed the 16 SxS dropped in a pair of shells and came out the back door ready for battle. Now I was not far off & having never seen Gram's with one of the guns before stopped to watch. LOL, Gram's didn't know guns well at all, even though farm born & lived all her life there, that was a man's affair in her mind. But that day when that big cloud of Starlings was getting ready to eat the family harvest Gram's managed to step up big time! ! She raised that 16, & just then the Starlings flew out of the tree & bunched like they'll do.... The two barrels fire made one longer than normal BoBoom. It just plain rained Starlings for a second. She killed 37 of them Starlings with that one dual blast and had a huge bruise that took a couple weeks to fade away completely. I went out and picked up the dead, as I wanted to see just how many Grams got. Never, ever saw Grams with a gun again, but she did a heck of a job that day. Grandma had put a finger on each trigger.......LOL.....but not funny that day if you were a Starling.

Another interesting memory......from decades later......at farm I lived on by then & now.

Came home from work & saw lawn lounge out in the old orchard & 16 yr. old Kristi in it in bikini with book, near the sweet cherry trees. As I started to walk out to ask her what made her move out to the orchard I saw her slooowly putting down her book & picking up her 20 ga I'd not seen till then. I froze & watched her sit up & take down a incoming pair of Starlings, put shells in 391 & then swap gun for book. I went in the house & changed, took my 12 & went and joined her with a couple cokes, extra shells & latest Outdoorlife. Was a fine afternoon & evening, unless you were a starling hungry for sweet cherries that day.

Starlings still contend with me for the cherries off our trees every year. With Kristi grown & gone they do a lot better now......but I still take some out each year.

BUT, 2 yr. old grandson loves sweet cherries, so the circle continues! ! !

I kill my starlins with .22

My native CO specifically lists starlings, English house sparrows and feral pigeons as birds that can be shot year round. Where I grew up there were lots of farms and ranches and we had a lot of all 3. I literally wore out a couple Crosman pellet guns shooting birds.

Now I have an RWS Model 38 and it has laid a pile of them out as well.

Winchester .22lr 42 grain subsonic HP. They make a delightful THWOP when you hit the meaty part. Need to get Varmint bbl for my Sako threaded for my suppressor so they come back sooner. The CZ 452 f/s does a good job from the dogs bowl out to about 50 yds. No room to thread it for the suppressor though.