After-Action Report 06/05/2009

The children have a couple of their little friends over to spend the night, and they were out playing in the front yard just before dusk. They were moving all around the yard and riding scooters up and down the sidewalk, making a racket. Enough of a racket that the pigeons thought it must be okay to roost over my car with all those loud moving things down there.

Hold on there.

I heard a ruckus from the trees and asked my Darling Wife what it was. She reported pigeons. Then, bless her, she stayed on target and kept a finger pointing at the nearest one as I retrieved my Daisy and loaded up. Seeking. Hard to see with this dim scope in the failing light. They retrieved a flashlight for me and I held it to the barrel of the rifle with one hand. Shot. Hit. Flapping fall, and off to the neighbor's driveway. I knocked it out temporarily with the flashlight to the head, then knocked the bird into the grass so it wouldn't leave (more) blood on their driveway, and reloaded. There was another bird up there, silhouetted against the sky and easy enough to see without the torch. Shot. Hit. It was hurt badly but fighting. It hopped around in the boughs of my tree and rained down a couple of drops of blood on my left arm (ewww). Finally it found its way to the grass between my driveway and the neighbor's. I went and conked it on the head also, then went to the first bird and shot it through the head as it was twitching a little. There was another one up there but it got too dark to see through a thick bunch of leaves where it hid and (fortunately for it) it decided to lay dog until we gave up searching for it.

Then, and this is the fun part, I had #2 and his friend put on gloves and they each carried a pigeon back to the opening of the big garage door. #1 and her friend came around and we had an avian anatomy lesson long enough to drive my Darling Wife inside due to the pestering mosquitoes. #1 was a bit disappointed that I wouldn't field strip the birds right in the garage doorway; I told her maybe on another bird. I don't like disassembling animals unless I'm eating them. Then we went around to the back yard and tossed the carcasses over the fence for the ants or whatever lives back there.

As it turns out, there were a male and a female and it was interesting to point out the differences in size and decoration. 2 less car poopers to worry about. Oh, and for David who asked about the pellets in the last one, all three shots were through-and-throughs.