As a kid in the early sixties, crows roosted in the trees of the state park about a mile or so from town here in north Texas. I assumed it was a normal occurrence to have thousands of crows flying in before sunset to roost in the cedar trees of the park where they were safe from whatever was after them besides me. Shooting wasn’t allowed in the park, and the crows were not molested (except for the ten year old kid with the full choked H & R .410) . I would hide in the dead Johnson grass of a road ditch and bang away at the crows. I hadn’t figured out the “leading” of a flying target yet, so I was astonished when one of the crows folded his wings upon my shot and crashed into the crushed limestone surface of the county road next to the grass filled ditch where I was hiding. What I didn’t realize was my granddad was in his ‘57 Pontiac Starchief at the top of the rise and had seen my shot!
I was ecstatic! We had to leave; as the overcast sky was beginning to darken and the straggler crows were very few, now. Granddad congratulated me and even let me take the hapless crow home to show my dad!
Does anyone out there in the wide world of sports know where the masses of crows have retired to? Has the use of herbicides or insecticides reduced the population to only a small fraction of what they once were ? I’d like to know if the number of these fellows has really been reduced. Dad related to me that the crows were so abundant in the thirties that roosts had been rigged with dynamite in order to drop their numbers.