Oh how I hate starlings! This means WAR!!!!!

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Turkeyslayer

Turkeyslayer

Smells Great
Joined
Feb 27, 2009
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Location
Southern Ontario
The little black bastards have returned at full strength. I tried to start the fireplace insert tonight only to find zero draft due to the starlings have already built a nest in there. I was running the insert 24/7 just last week but since it has been milder this week it has just been the woodstove for heat. I have shot a couple with the .22 in the past couple of days but with tonights episode It will be the scatter gun coming out in the morning. They like to all sit in a huge spruce tree and sing every morning, and with the shotgun I am hoping to kill more than 1 per pull of the trigger:censored::angry2::blob2::bang::angry::rant::poke:
 
LOL! Good luck. My buddy has had a nest through a pot vent in the roof, and every year a different staring comes and make a home there. Naturally we kill it and another one comes along, PITA bird.
Happy shooting.
 
3.5" 12ga hulls hand loaded with 1-3/8 oz of #8's.

Right after the first shot(Make sure to use an open pattern like Mod/IC) the nasty starlings will always regroup and circle a bit.

That's when it's time for tripples and quads!:D

I HATE Starlings and Grackles. Damn invasives from Britan anyhow!

You should see the fricking things attack my berry patch when the fruit is ripe. It's like the Hitchcock movie, and because of food safety issues I can't even shoot over the patch and have to wait until they fly to the edges.

Kill 'em ALL!!!!

Stay safe!
Dingeryote
 
I use a high power air rifle for those purposes.

The neighbors don't hear it, and the game don't get spooked to easy either.

Much safer too, firearm projectiles travel very far.

Even declared war on squirrels when they found a way into my house.
 
for the longest time, starlings would not land in my yard.... they'd land in my neighbors trees. but stayed away from mine.

Beeman R-7 .177 has taken a butt load of starlings. very low power, barely 6 ft lbs and super quiet too.

much safer than shooting a .22 up high... way too dangerous as .22 bullets can fly far.
 
I got 3 of them yesterday, checking out my Purple Martin gourds. I too use an air rifle. 22 cal Logun Solo with scope. Problem is they're smart.. As soon as they figure out where I'm shooting from it's over. Crack that window and they're outta here. Same with English Sparrows. Once they figure out where it's coming from, it gets harder and harder.

Ian
 
Get an owl, hawk or Eagle statue to put up on a high point on the house. Get one that the head moves around in the wind and has the reflective eyes. Otherwise you will have to go up on the roof occasionally to move it around or they get wise to it being a fake.

Starlings are a nasty bird. The flocks in our area are infested with ticks. Wherever they decide to roost gets inundated with the ticks when they begin to preen. The area under their roost is also coverd with their droppings.

Good luck
 
Ya'll don't know how bad they are, until you live on a farm.

We have flocks that number in the THOUSANDS at a time. They crap everywhere. When the land on the cattle barns, the whole roof is black.

I went to war with the easy way.

Avitrol (bird poison)
I also use a live trap, the size of a shed. I think this month I have killed 2 or 3 hundred of them.

When ya break their necks, don't pull too hard or you get a messy hand covered in red and a little beak in your hand. :chainsaw:
 
Wear rubber gloves and pull hard. Separate heads and bodies so they don't grow back.

Seriously, the problem with poison is that they fly off and die. Anything that eats them also gets poisoned. Some farmers out west got in a big mess with law enforcement over poisoned grain when the flocks of red winged black birds became a problem.

Ian
 
here's a pic of my Beeman R-1 .22 with custom Marcari Walnut stock with a couple of dead Starlings.

r1legend.JPG
 
When we first moved in my wife fed the birds. Flocks of pigeons would come in and knock the litle birds off the feeders. I used a pellet rifle,22,anf finally a shotgun to get rid of them. The 12 gauge was the funnest! Keep up the pressure hopefully they will move.:)
 
Avitrol Dangerous but No Secondary Poisonings.

In field and laboratory studies, there have been no confirmed secondary poisonings with Avitrol http://www.avitrol.com/about.php. This means that if the bird dies after digesting the chemical an animal eating the bird will not be affected. However, if a vertebrate eats the chemical directly or the bird has undigested Avitrol in its crop, the animal eating it can be killed. There is record of a person dying after absorbing it through the skin, although this will not happen if the label is followed. The location for the Avitrol application should be carefully selected and removal after the target birds have fed on it should be considered. We don't want to kill ducks, cranes and pheasants. Not only would those results in themselves be unfortunate, but it could lead to banning of the chemical. Avitrol is also toxic to fish.
 
freemind said:
Ya'll don't know how bad they are, until you live on a farm.:
Click to expand...

I live on a farm....but the biggest problem I had was where I work. Our office had some Aristocrat Pear trees that were planted in the grass island around the parking lot. For the first 8-10 years all was well and the trees are really pretty in the spring when they are blooming, and in the fall they have small berries on them about the size of a cherry. As the trees got bigger they started producing large amounts of fruit, and in November and December the Starlings would show up by the thousands to eat the berries. Our parking lot became almost unuseable for about 2 months - we finally had to cut the trees down and we planted Maple trees as we could not ask our employees to put up with this kind of abuse. The birds may not show up one day....but they would come and go and leave behind a horrible mess every couple of days until the berries were gone. The acidic droppings would etch the clear coat and stain the paint on the cars. The attached pictures show what would happen after a single visit by the Starlings.
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