Thread: What little pesties did you bowl over today?

Originally Posted by Wingman

Just got into bed and almost asleep and two rowdy possums start going at it outside the bedroom window!
Out came the .25cal Matador and a LED torch and it was over quick.. took one with a headshot off the top of my kids playhouse and the second one jumped and bolted up a tree next to the pond.. another solid hit and it landed in the water.. sorted.. back to bed.

That .25 is a beast! looks great at that length.

The wife hasn’t got them yet, but she will...

These dickhead birds attack their own reflection in the reflective bathroom window... for hours on end. (The wife has been instructed not to try and shoot them while they are attacking the window.)

We had a blackbird do this every day at dawn last summer. Thump, scratch scatch. Thump, scratch scratch. Got him eventually. Man how I hated that damn bird.

I found an English blackbird nest in my grape vine yesterday, 1 nearly hatched egg and two chicks, necks rung and fed to the chooks..................does this count ??

I guess so

Originally Posted by Kamel

I found an English blackbird nest in my grape vine yesterday, 1 nearly hatched egg and two chicks, necks rung and fed to the chooks..................does this count ??

I didn't know they were pests.

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Originally Posted by Russian 22.

I didn't know they were pests.

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do I need to start adding them to my starling tally ????

Black birds are very invasive. You see them everywhere from town to the most remote bush. They must compete with native species such as Robin for food. (and I hate the noise they make).

@Flyblown WTF?

Originally Posted by Shearer

Black birds are very invasive. You see them everywhere from town to the most remote bush. They must compete with native species such as Robin for food. (and I hate the noise they make).

I stalked about 40 of the buggers on the true right of Tauranga stream.Could hear something but couldn't pin it down,a swampy area of hook grass. Nearly shat when they gapped it

Magpie at 79 yds , Sako .22lr , he did not like it , I did

We do everything we can to encourage native birds - tuis particularly. But the imports are overwhelming. Starlings in the sheds, in the chimney (I farking hate that cos who is the only one who will go get them out), blackbirds in the engine bays of the cars. Mynas everywhere.

The worst was 3-4 months after my first boy was born. We had a nice Audi Quattro in those days (don’t ever get one). Didn’t drive it that often, more of a weekend blat car. I was driving down the hill and as the engine warmed up, a bush fire smell came in through the vents, I thought it was a bonfire somewhere. I pulled onto SH2 and gave it the berries, that really worked, now there was proper smoke pouring through the vents.

Pulled over. Full on fire now, on top of the manifold - blackbird nest. No fire extinguisher. SHITE! Burnt myself grabbing the nest but bits of it fell all over the engine bay and that really got them going. Managed to remember the boy’s expressed breast milk bottle and snatched that off him and used it to try and put it out - fark he didn’t like that one bit - instant screaming!

It was all over pretty quick. Burnt hand, sobbing infant. The bonnet sound proofing, some cable insultation and plastic covers were melted. I turned round and went home, phoned the wife and said “I can’t cope, come home now. I don’t have tits, he’ll scream for hours, over to you.”

The car stank of bonfire meets burnt milk for a few months. I hated it after that, which was a bit irrational. But I farking hate blackbirds even more...

Originally Posted by dannyb

do I need to start adding them to my starling tally ????

Only if they're rookie numbers. Gotta pump those numbers up!

Originally Posted by Shearer

Black birds are very invasive. You see them everywhere from town to the most remote bush. They must compete with native species such as Robin for food. (and I hate the noise they make).

Ah makes sense. I see them in Auckland all the time.

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A lot of people mistake starlings for black birds , because starlings are blacker of the two .
Starlings get around in flocks and nest in tractors lol , black birds in my opinion are a beautiful
songbird . They are usually the last bird to sing in the evening , up high on the very top of a tree .
Bring back great memories of 60yrs ago on the family farm as a kid , when the black bird sang you new
it was time to head home and to bed .

I deal to the blackbirds around home but they are good around camp as they nut of if there is a venny moving around.

Originally Posted by Shearer

Black birds are very invasive. You see them everywhere from town to the most remote bush. They must compete with native species such as Robin for food. (and I hate the noise they make).

Yeah, they are bastards of things, worse than starlings out here, in season they will decimate your fruit trees, strawberries get stolen unless covered with netting, and as you say, they get stuck into the native birds which we have spent years attracting to our place by planting a garden they like. Little blue wrens cop a flogging from the black bastards.