The Starlings are getting wise

[Mags]

.
Ha! Target practice is on paper. Hunting squirrels and starlings is the real deal. Well at least a smaller real deal.

TARGET PRACTICE!!

[Slugnut]

put out some decoys.

[Ojaileveraction]

The merry birds of Shakespeare
Schieffelin was a late 19th century New York pharmacist and by 1877 was the chairman and driving force of the American Acclimatization Society. The group was founded in New York City in 1871 for the purpose of introducing European flora and fauna to North America. Schieffelin, by popular accounts, went a step further. He was an avid Shakespeare admirer and decided the group should introduce to North America every bird species that the Bard of Avon mentioned in his works. That would be roughly 60, give or take a species.

"It is not easy to come up with a complete list of bird species Schieffelin's American Acclimatization Society tried to introduce into the United States," said Joe DiCostanzo, a bird specialist at the American Natural History Museum. "It is not clear that a comprehensive list was ever published."

Some species which Schieffelin's group apparently did bring to America, DiCostanzo said, were the sky lark (Alauda arvensis), the nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), the song thrush (Turdus philomelos), the common chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) and, notably, the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris). Shakespeare only mentioned starlings once, in Henry IV, Act 1, when Hotspur is rebelling against the king. Hotspur wants to get back at the ruler, so in the third scene Shakespeare has him fantasize about teaching a starling to torment the King by saying the name of one of his highness's enemies, Mortimer.

"Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion."

That was all the prompting Schieffelin needed.

He imported 60 starlings to New York and on March 6, 1890, brought them from his country house to Central Park. Reportedly, other introductions of birds from Shakespeare's poems and plays had not fared well in America. So what could possibly go wrong with releasing five dozen little black birds with stubby tails in the middle of New York City on what has been described as a snowy and cold spring morning? More than 125 years and 200 million starlings later, we know the answer.

English Sparrows were introduced also on purpose.

With respect to North America, eight pairs were released in the spring of 1851 in Brooklyn, New York. House sparrows were also introduced between 1872 and 1874 by the Cincinnati Acclimatization Society. Numerous similar introductions occurred in the years following the first release in 1851, and small numbers were collected within this country and transported to other parts of the country, resulting in house sparrows being established throughout the lower 48 states. House sparrows were established in California by 1910.

[markiver54]

I wish there was a way to let Schieffelin know the mistake he made!
I guess our ammo manufacturers have benefited though.