there just seems to be tons of crows around my house. BUT, they take great effort in flying to avoid the place. I mean they will be flying straight at it and then take a 500 yard detour to avoid the place. I just don't understand since i'm always happy to see them and show my glee by shooting them. I just don't understand why they don't like me

Wish I could get some of my coworkers to avoid me like that.

quote:

Originally posted by erict:
Wish I could get some of my coworkers to avoid me like that.

+1

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
there just seems to be tons of crows around my house. BUT, they take great effort in flying to avoid the place. I mean they will be flying straight at it and then take a 500 yard detour to avoid the place. I just don't understand since i'm always happy to see them and show my glee by shooting them. I just don't understand why they don't like me

It's that lawn full of black feathers that keep drifting down out of the sky and waving at them , if you raked them all together around your owl decoy they might think it's a party!

There is a difference in old crows and young crows, young crows can tell if you have a gun, old crows can tell if it's loaded. You must have old crows.

They do make one damned fun time shooting, though!

time to break out the center fire rifle. the 220 swift does a bang up job out of those crows that think they are so clever and stay out of range of the shot gun toting nimrod.

I swear the crows would watch me through the window of my first house. If I even touched the gun cabinet in the living room they would fly away. One day I left a .22 Mag by the front door and took the screen out. They learned a new lesson that they had better just stay in the field across the road that day. Then a couple days later I belly crawled through the yard and across the road w/ a .22-250. They wouldn't come within 1000 yards any more!

The funniest crow hit I've ever seen was from a buddy of mine when we were out shooting rockchucks.

We were set up on his neighbors field and were laying prone with some great rests to shoot from. About 275-300 yards away was a line of rock piles that were we shooting at and had been for about 20-30 minutes. There were about 4-6 dead rockchucks in various degrees of presentation "spread" over the rock piles and that attracted some crows. One of the biggest hopped down to lunch on some ground rockchuck and then hopped back up on a fence post.

There was a slight wind and when he went to launch into the wind he did a little squat and then......Booommmmmm. My buddy's 22-250 roared and as I was looking at the crow through a spotting scope it seemed like someone opened up a pillow case full of black feathers just at the launch point and tossed them into the wind. We never did find any of the crow when we went over to the rock piles to count the dead.

This is funny, growing up we used to shoot all kinds of birds with our pellet guns, untill there came a point where no birds of any kind would ever land in our yard, or light in any of the trees around it...... they would fly over and land in the neighbors, but never in ours.

At my hunting lodge its been 4 years since I've seen a crow within 400 yards of the house.
The first year I owned the place I shot every crow and squirrel that raided the bird and deer feeders. Now the wife has two Jack Russel's they take care of the squirrels.

When I moved into my present house, crows would fly over, low, quite often.
From someone who use to shoot at "Ft. Cobb" OK, I took this as an insult
I "educated" a couple of them. It was years before any would come close again, and usually it was from at least 100yds up.
They land in the neighbors field, trees, but still stay out of mine.
Seems like the neighbors can drive by them and they don't fly, but they know my truck, and move when I drive by.

Similarly, Ravens are crafty. When calling coyotes I consider it a rare privilege to call a raven in and educate him. Twice I've been able to "educate them" with a 17 Hornet at that instant when they realize you're there, but before they can change direction. There's that split second of hang time where all forward movement stops and sideways movement hasn't begin. Fish in a barrel.

As a bird hunter of ducks, goose, dove, quail, turkey, etc I have noticed the same thing. We were all talking about this once. One of the old guys says " If those birds were as smart as crows is, we would all be hungry" or something to that effect. I have to say it seems right. The rascals are both smart and crafty.

At least one of the guys I know has a set for them and tries to call them in and shotgun them not unlike goose hunting. It works sometimes, but not too often. I have never been though.

And they can recognize faces. There was a research project done with guys harassing crows while wearing Dick Channey masks. The crows learned to avoid them when the guys wore the masks. The funnier part is that they tried putting the masks on upside down, and the crows would turn their heads so they could determine if it was the Channey charactor.

I take crows on a friend's ranch, they see my truck and they leave the area. After two seasons, my truck can't get within 500 yards of them anymore.

fact- crows remember your face, your truck, and they know what a rifle is. They also warn other crows about you, and it sticks for years over quite a bit of territory.

I have spoken.

I seen that show bout the crows. They are so friking smart they can talk to each other, use tools to get food, and remember you 3 years later!! Just make sure you kill em if you shoot at em.

quote:

Originally posted by oneshotonly:
I seen that show bout the crows. They are so friking smart they can talk to each other, use tools to get food, and remember you 3 years later!! Just make sure you kill em if you shoot at em.

I shot one on family property and caught attitude from some 7 miles away 45 minutes later.

Several years ago we had some crows that would get in a dead tree at the edge of the woods and call like crazy every morning. First light, everyday. One day I couldn't stand it any longer and shot one. As he laid there the others flew down close to him (her) and really raised cane. Then flew off. Pretty soon about twenty came to look. Now they fly all around our place but not close.
Smart birds.
David

Sometimes they do make a mistake. I shoot them out of the back bedroom window (careful not to stick the barrel outside)with a pellet gun. I hit one at 33 yds and it flew off into a tree, and then dropped out of the tree a few seconds later. Another crow came down out of the tree and pecked at the wounded ones wing. As he stood there at 64 yds I popped him too. Had to go out to finish him though.

I nailed one last week off the telephone pole near my house with a silenced .22 and Win Subs. Never again! Before I knew it there were about 10 flying around him making noise and a few neighbours came out to see what had happened! P.S. The pigeons avoid my place too, cant understand it....

I shot one that must have been the dumbest crow in Alabama.

I took my kids shooting awhile back and one was in the tree right above us for 20+ minutes, crowing and being a general PITA.

So, I took a .22 pistol with a red dot and missed. He just sat there. Second shot connected and he fell dead.

Suicide by hunter is the best I can figure.

I hunted them for years in my youth - took me years to get my first one! Last one I killed many years ago ruined it for me - winged him with a 12 gauge as he flew over - went down in a ditch so I went over to see - when I got to him (her?) he/she looked me in the eye obviously very scared and it was like he was saying to me "what the hell did I ever do to you? Are you going to kill me?" I probably did but that spoiled ever shooting them again for me anyway - too intelligent! I have some around my place now - I feed them sometimes and have a lot of respect for them due to their intelligence - they make great pets I hear.

Killing them at 300 yards is one thing, but doing so @ 10 feet while they look you in the eye is something else ):

quote:

Originally posted by erict:
Wish I could get some of my coworkers to avoid me like that.

Shoot one of them. That oughta work.

quote:

Originally posted by oneshotonly:
I seen that show bout the crows. They are so friking smart they can talk to each other, use tools to get food, and remember you 3 years later!! Just make sure you kill em if you shoot at em.

Were those crows in Japan? If so, I saw the same one. Crows would fly at altitude with nuts that they dropped on the street to crack open. They actually did it at stoplight intersections so they could time the lights so as to have the nut impact, and retrieve it quickly while cars were stopped. Crazy smart.

quote:

Originally posted by erict:
Wish I could get some of my coworkers to avoid me like that.

Crap your pants and they stay away!

My grandmother educated them by shooting out the back door of the farm house at them. Naturally we could not open the door without them flying out of the pecan trees 150 yards away.
One Thanksgiving Day after the big meal some landed in the trees and I snuck out the front door to get my brother's 6mm Rem.
With a full kitchen looking out all the windows I watched the crows blowing back and forth about 3 ft on a swing in a strong wind.
I aimed at the end of a swing and watched about 3 passes before touching one off as the crow came to a momentary halt. At the shot one wing took off like a boomerang out of the field of view and the rest pretty much blew away in the wind.

quote:

..... opened up a pillow case full of black feathers .....

LMFAO!

Yeah ...... do the hide in the Hay Bale trick with a rifle; it really doesn't matter what cartridge, as long as you can reach out and touch 'em. Gotta love the cloud of black feathers routine!

My son and I were hunting ducks one bright sunny fall day and not a duck in sight. Suddenly, crows started flying over us, so we started shooting crows. Funny thing, but the more we shot, the more they just kept coming. Then, instead of flying over, they just kept circling us. This lasted for quite a while and we shot a lot of crows. Then suddenly, they just flew away and no more came over.
joe

One of my hunting partners called me up about a week ago and told me this was on TV. It is amazing to see how intelligent these birds are.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature...s/full-episode/5977/

If the link doesn't work Google OPB Special on Crows and this comes right up.

I used to shoot crows at my place whenever I legally could. Then one day I noticed a flock of crows harrassing a hawk that was flying above my poultry yard. Now the local crows work for me for free as poultry security guards. I'm thinking of buying them night vision gear to keep the great horned owls away...