Gentle reader do not scoff or call a man a fool to buck a porous plaster off was passtime to that mule
apologies to the Banjo

Whats he got to do with this particular blog?
answer..not a lot
Only he was known to write about crows..I think:)
and thats what this story is all about.

(drongo picture..looks like a small crow, but with a forked tail)

Here we are at Redbanks..Swansea variety, in tassie. Bokos there are now a few of them around..sigh.
And quite a few years ago
Before the days of gun control per se
Even before the days of enlightenment..well, maybe thats a bit of a stretch
So, we had a dead sheepieBaa.
Now, in Tassie, you have to more than just careful to dispose of dead sheepieBaas, on account of thats where dogs of the canine department get hydatids, which then create havoc with us, humans, people,  homo sapiens..Doesnt seem to matter on the mainland, appanently bekos its warmer, and the worms dont occur..but all the same, old habits die hard, so noo liver to go to puppies of any shape..as well as other internal organs, and all meat to be cooked.
Anyway
Dead sheepieBaa in the paddock. Over the road from the houses, not far from the shelter shed/thatch shed, as it once was. In fact, well within shottie range, and a .22..easy squeezie.
Crows were..one of..the bugbears of Dad’s life. They sat on unsuspecting sheepieBaas backs, and tried to eat their eyeballs, cleaned up dead lambsies, and were suspected of causing a few dead lambsies. Ananthema! Kill on sight stuff.
Well, you never seemed to get on top of bumping crows off, besides, Dad had a sheepieBaapuppy dog that used to go bush if anything went bang around him. So, you just didnt go around with anything that went bang on the off chance of seeing a crow, did you? Nope. Toby dog got nervous when he saw a gun…and was apt to distappear at inopportune moments…sigh.
What you did do, to ease the frustrations all of this entailed, was to spread 1080 around on a dead sheepieBaa, and hope one of your puppies didnt get too inquisitive..bit fatal doing that sort of thing, and even Dad frowned on doing that. Or, you arranged a shoot. Eminently satisfying. you bang off at a heap of crows to your hearts content. sort of like satisfying an addiction. Well, until the next lambing happened anyway. Organising a shoot ..well, first source a dead sheepieBaa. Crows are inherently suspicious critters, and if a totally dead sheepieBaa were to suddenly appear next to a shed with gun barrels protuding, they are conspicuous by their absence.
so, a ..naturally dead sheepieBaa in highly convenient proximety to a shed across the road is an opportunity not to be wasted. Ok, get up before the dawn, load up all the ammo and guns you can find, walk to the shed..not drive, on account of thats a give-away sign that gun barrels are close by..a shed with a ute parked out the front where no ute was before, and a dead sheepieBaa on the other side.. sit next to an opening of sorts, and wait for a bit of light to happen. Now, my head was filled with all sorts of crow stories by the time we got there..how you toss a dead crow in the air, and every crow within cooee comes to investigate. how if you whip up a stick and point it at a crow, say Bang ..he’ll dive almost to the ground and scarper. how Dad always wanted to build a crow trap, but never did. I think mum had something to do with that..something to do with the bait for the trap smelling to high heaven. and Im here to say, there are better smells around than a dead sheepieBaa.
To the story. you had to wait..there was frost on the ground, and crows had delicate feet. They waited until the frost had gone…well, one of two got super hungry, hopped down, and before you know it there were lots of the sods, having a great time right before our eyes.
Dad had the shottie, and I the .22. Next second there was an almighty bang, and it was on for young and old. some of the .22 bullets I imagine made sure that the neighbours kept their heads down..they’re an inquisitive lot first thing in the morning, with a war erupting close handy like.
Dad reckoned later that he should have chosen the particular shottie that had a scattergun effect..the one he chose sent a shaped charge, and well, lets face it, you really needed to get as many as possible with every shot.
We only seemed to get a few, but for the next few days, we had crows in all sorts of strange places around the farm, having managed to get only so far from that shed.