Whooping cranes or Sandhill cranes, take your pick. They're both discussed here

[fishlkmich]

I thought that gun control meant that I can hold a gun steady enough to drop a starling at 50 yards!

[NEBogger]

fish, sounds like gun control to me!
Hindsight kicked in last night after I made my last post. My apologies.

[Equilibrium]

"
I thought that gun control meant that I can hold a gun steady enough to drop a starling at 50 yards! " By gosh by golly that is exactly what gun control means in our house.

[rondo769]

Originally Posted by fishlkmich

I thought that gun control meant that I can hold a gun steady enough to drop a starling at 50 yards!

I sit on my back porch and pick'em off with a pellet gun,sparrows too,especially when they start messin with my bluebirds,then it's war!!

[TheLorax]

Tip toeing in to comment,

I sit on my back porch and pick'em off with a pellet gun,sparrows too

English house sparrows is what he is picking off.

[Prairiefreak]

Hopefully they're English House Sparrows. That's the problem. I'm all for killing them, Lorax, you know how I feel about that. Starlings, too. BUT...female english house sparrows look a lot like many native sparrows. That could be an issue, depending on the bird ID skills of the shooter. It's a lot easier to buy a pellet gun and start blasting away than it is to concretely ID birds.






Helllooooooooooo...guns DO kill people. Was JFK killed by a spit-wad, or am I missing some info?

[rondo769]

Yes they are english house sparrows,and prariefreak,JFK was killed by Lee harvey oswald

[Fearless Weeder]

Now that we've had our history lesson, onward.

Would someone be in a position to share photos of the English House Sparrow and the European Starling?

[fishlkmich]

There is really no need for a photo of a european starling. They are the only bird in North America with a long yellow beak that I'm aware of. They can't be confused with any of our common "blackbirds". They are a member of the Myna family and since they are not protected if you have the desire to raise a young one you can do so legally. They can learn to mimic.

The best source that I know of for identifying all life stages of the house sparrow is at:
House Sparrow (HOSP) photographs

I am as active as one can get in reducing the numbers of these non-native birds and advocating the killing of these birds. I also attempt to be very loud in expressing the need to monitor traps (at least every hour or disable them) and to know your target if shooting. I would not personally shoot at what I believed to be a female house sparrow without the aid of a scope or binoculars. Putting up a bird house and allowing non-native species to reproduce in that housing is wrong. Killing native birds in the quest to remove non-native birds is wrong and illegal.

[rondo769]

Actually european starlings only have the yellow beak during the breeding season when there in breeding plumage,the rest of the year there beak is black,gray or brown.
As a kid,i had several as pets and they will mimic any sound,really there are kinda cool birds.I also had a crow as a pet,his name was clem,i raised him from a hatchling and had him for about 10 years