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86129squids
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 12:51 am: | 
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"We flipped a garbage can over and brought tennis rackets."
Are you starting the screenplay for "GLITCHFEST 2015- BATSHIZNIT CRAAAZY"?
"As a kid, I was fascinated by the chimney swifts- seems like lots of them lived in my neighborwood.
One day, I managed to shoot one out of the sky- with my BB gun, all I did was stun it though.
It was a beautiful bird, both eyes almost facing forward, with stereoscopic vision. |
Ezblast
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 03:52 am: |
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I've taken out squirrels and jays with a bb gun, but then I've done the same with a bow and target arrows. Really - spending money on varmints is a waste of time.
EZ |
Rick_a
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 06:48 am: |
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quote:They all did. The Sheridan was a bit longer .025. Your gun might be made by Crossman.
It would appear so.
It's a great shooter and has outlasted the Crosman 2100 I had by decades. |
Etennuly
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 11:45 am: |
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The problem with bats in the neighborhood is that if someone had a ladder that would reach high enough(at least 32 feet), and the fortitude to climb up there to fix the loose board, then the bats would move into someone else's house causing the afore mention "bat mess". The entire neighborhood was in tune with the eradication program. Any given summer evening someone around there would be swooped by or actually hit by one.
The garbage can was there so that we could stand at just the right height to "volley" and score! |
86129squids
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 12:04 pm: |
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Vern, that's kind of a sad story. I wonder if someone had thought to put up a few "bat boxes" up in the trees away from the houses, if the bats would have moved into those? It sounds like they were habituated into that nesting behavior- too bad.
Whenever I see a bat flying around, I'm appreciative of all the mosquitoes and bugs they're eating. Kewl critters. |
Johnnylunchbox
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 12:10 pm: |
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Squids, it's an involved process to remove the bats humanely. I did it and it involves (also $$$$) finding out where they're entering the house, then putting a one way "tunnel" so they can exit but not return. You do this when there are no young likely to remain in the attic.
When there are no more exiting, you then go over every square inch of your attic and caulk or wire mesh every single gap or hole.
Then I hired ServPro to come and clean up the mess. More $$$$.
I have no more flying squirrels or bats, so it was worth it, and they all got to live another day. |
Airbozo
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 03:33 pm: |
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Finally have to chime in...
I love the birds around where I live and let the hawks keep the population in check. We actually attract birds to our gardens to take care of the other pests and like I mentioned, the hawks mostly keep the birds in check. Freaks out some of the neighbors though, but life goes on.
Squirrels and rats piss me off the most. Damn squirrels steal all the plums and nectarines, and I had to have a serious discussion with the SO about attracting them with the pretty feeder her parents gave us. Working on the problem now for next year trying not to use poison.
Rats? Damn hard to keep them under control. Traps just slow them down (even the big ones). I've gotten good with the pellet gun and wrist rocket though. I've also nailed a few just throwing rocks at them (I swear that last one was flipping me off). My neighbor has resorted to a 240 volt powered feeding trough... Seems to work on the squirrels too.
Bats are welcome at my house, just not in it. We have about a dozen bat houses on the redwoods around my house and they seem to have left the house alone. Kind of odd seeing them dive and dodge around you certain times of the year.
My most recent nemesis are the gophers and moles. Long tubes hooked up to the FJ40 exhaust is starting to do the job. Takes a concentrated effort with all the neighbors though, otherwise they just move around.
Skunks? I could use help figuring that one out. Nothing like being confronted by one in the early morning as I pull the bike out to head to work. Lucky I have not been sprayed yet. |
Etennuly
| | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2015 - 06:56 pm: |
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Funny how people pick out which varmints they choose to like and dislike. I hate it when some one says it is sad to kill bats(my neighborhood's varmint enemy at the time), but are willing to shoot down their varmint enemy, because they are eating your bird seed or chewing on your property.
The whole thing is like animal racism. Pick a side. Pick a critter. Shoot the one you don't like, but don't whine about the one I shoot, I won't get all misty eyed over your choice.
We did the bat thing back in the late 60's. There were no bat boxes.....only talk from the people of the town of burning the house down to get rid of the bat problem. It was a small enough town to not have a town council and the nearby county township council didn't have any money so they did what they always did.....nothing. They(the community) actually asked the Boy Scouts(of which I was one)if they wanted to burn the abandoned house down, the bat problem was that bad. Our scout leaders thought better of that idea.
It was the late 60's in a very small town composed of truly good neighbors who didn't have to give a neighbor a key when they went on vacation.....they didn't lock their houses anyways and probably could not find a key if they looked for it.
At six years old we rode our bicycles anywhere in a two mile radius with our friends and everybody's mom knew, watched over, and patched up cuts and bruises on anyone's child without question. A great place to live where we even had to do "duck and cover" drills in our local elementary schools during the early cold war era.
I wish all of you could have felt the actual freedom of living in a wonderful little town that no one feared being sued for washing out and putting antibiotic cream and a bandaid on a kid's knees and elbows who fell off his bike on a dirt road near their house. Ten minutes of sniveling and after a cold glass of Koolaid he would be on his way. Nowadays someone would call for an ambulance and someone is out eight grand for the emergency room and the ride, a parent would go to jail for leaving a child in the hands of a town and for riding without a helmet and knee pads.
Communities like that fell apart, or locked down, in the early seventies when the mom's went to work, divorce rates went up, and dope smokin' moved in and all of the sudden we needed a police presence and lawyers.
How the hell did I get this far off the original rant? Oh well. I digress....
Oh.....and we did not put an eye out with the Daisy rifle, but the last time I saw it was when I shot my brother in the ass with it. |
Ezblast
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 01:11 am: |
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We keep one by the door for varmint purposes. Works for us. We have a plinker target on the other side of the yard for practice - so no windows broken - lol
EZ |
Patches
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 06:59 am: |
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Aesquire
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 11:04 am: |
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Probably not a good choice for the OP. 
I do dispute that it's not worth spending money on varmint /pest eradication. I know guys who have spent thousands on rifles and reloading gear to shoot rodents. I keep looking at the scopes with built in lasers to hit chucks at absurd ranges.
To each his own, you're never getting me out Bear hunting again, but hitting big rats ( groundhog, Woodchuck, all rats to me ) helps out the farmers and can actually save lives.
Then again I come from an age where people were sane and a couple of kids walking to the dump to shoot rats didn't make anyone blink. |
86129squids
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 11:31 am: |
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Gots me a BEEEUUTIFUL sunny day here in E. TN, getting ready to head out for a short MC ride before work- looked outside, and every bird at my freshly refilled feeders is an English sparrow. 
I'll be ordering one of those wire traps here in a day or 2. |
Greg_e
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 11:43 am: |
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Ummm.... Isn't that shotgun illegal? Certainly looks like shorter than 18 inch barrel. |
Johnnylunchbox
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 11:46 am: |
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You know...sparrow wrapped in a little bacon with some sage and broiled in butter is pretty darn skippy. Just saying. |
86129squids
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 12:33 pm: |
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Hmmm, might look into that. We serve quail as an appetizer where I work, but those sparrows are a little smaller... might be a pain to clean them.  |
Rick_a
| | Posted on Saturday, February 07, 2015 - 10:51 pm: |
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quote:Ummm.... Isn't that shotgun illegal?
AOW. $5 tax stamp and ATF registration. |
Johnnylunchbox
| | Posted on Sunday, February 08, 2015 - 12:24 pm: |
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86129squids
| | Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 01:48 pm: |
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Just ordered a Tomahawk cage trap for $59 shipped- on Amazon it seemed the best deal, also with the most + reviews...
I'll post up the outcome when the time comes! The GF didn't appreciate my suggestion of dunking the filled trap to exterminate them- she'll prolly want me to relocate them, but that'll just make them someone else's problem. |
Brother_in_buells
| | Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 02:55 pm: |
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You ever thought about that for each sparrow or other bird you remove ,another one takes its place!
You better spent the time for something else/better and let the birds the birds! |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 03:11 pm: |
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It's a good thing to deal with invasive species.
We humans messed with the natural order and have to work to fix things or every critter loses.
No more wolves..... we killed them out east.... so if we don't hunt deer they overpopulate starve in mass numbers and more people die in crashes.
Ask any Aussie about invasive species. |
86129squids
| | Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 03:23 pm: |
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Brother- from what I've gathered, they'll all pile in like lemmings if they think they can get a free meal. These birds live in colonies- I've watched them the past several years around the house.
It'll be no big deal. Take down the feeders and the suet, set up the trap in an attractive place nearby, and just give it a check a couple times a day. Once I trap the majority of the colony, the stragglers will probably head out in search of their kinfools. When they come back, out goes the trap again.
BTW, I took another serious look at most of my target ranges for pellet gun use, and actually most of them have pretty safe overshoot areas behind.
I'll want to deal with the starlings too, will have to shoot them to do so...  |
86129squids
| | Posted on Thursday, April 09, 2015 - 01:01 pm: |
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Update-
DANG if not the first bird ever got trapped. Got a big goose egg with the trap so far, pun intended.
The whole time my GF's little bleeding heart worried about what would happen after I trapped them, never did hear the end of that... until I took the trap down.
Anyone have actual EXPERIENCE trying to trap these dang birds?! I'm still pi$$3d about how they tore up the hole on what was a NICE birdhouse, which I've still gotta fix and re-hang...
Still not totally sure at all about pellet guns, I'd like to think my overshoot ranges would be OK, but... |
Jaimec
| | Posted on Thursday, April 09, 2015 - 01:36 pm: |
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Nature has a way of maintaining the balance. We believe HE is that balance:
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1020495213313 6381&set=vb.1032635627&type=3&theater |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Thursday, April 09, 2015 - 02:00 pm: |
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Wonder how accurate something like this is, or how hard they are to get?
http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/813_1_1041197.html
They would carry a lot of energy at short ranges, but loose energy REALLY quickly at any kind of distance. |
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