After-Action Report: 10 July 2009

My Darling Wife took #1 out bike riding and #3 in the jogging stroller, to keep her company on a jog through the area. I took #2 swimming at the neighborhood pool. We got home first, fortunately, because she forgot to take any keys with her. When they got home, we let them in the garage (to stow the stroller & bicycle). I noticed, as I was going about the business of putting things away for the night, that there was a pair of pigeons in the tree just off to the side of my driveway. Everyone had already gone inside, so I was able to stalk the birds without an undue amount of noise.

I loaded and pumped up the pellet rifle quickly, and I immediately was glad to find (again) that the 4x40 glass I mounted on the Daisy is almost as good at gathering light as my eyeball. Shot. Plop. Reload quickly, go check the bird from a couple yards away: dead still. I backed up a little so's not to spook the other bird. She was apparently unperturbed by the sudden disappearance of her sitting buddy. This shot was taken in rapidly-fading light, and with the old Tasco 4x15 scope, it would have been impossible; as it was, I had to look twice to find her in the branches. Shot. Plop. Twitch. Twitch.

Then something most unexpected happened. It has happened only once before, and that was half a year ago, done by a now-dead cat. The neighbors' grey tom was on the driveway next door, and saw the slowly-twitching pigeon. It did a bit of unnecessary stalking of its own, and pounced. It was a good strike, right on the bird's neck.

I went to snap a photo of the cat having his supper, and another local flying nuisance tried to make supper of me! Make that 3 confirmed kills for the night:



Then I got off one shot at the cat before my memory card was full. Still hadn't unpacked the images from Independence Day. When there is not enough ambient light for the autofocus to focus, this is what you get:



As it turns out, the first bird was a male, and the second was a female. The first was easy enough to tell, just go over and look. The second, I didn't want to scare the cat away from while he was eating. I inched closer and the cat started meowing, but I only hung out long enough to have a look at the coloration on the bird. Then I grabbed the male by a toe and took him to the backyard, and slung him over the fence to feed whatever it is that cleans up back there.

I was starting to feel bad about all the misses I was getting with the birds on the wire when the scope was not sighted in yet. Two one-shot kills can get you feeling better about bad shooting in a hurry!