This is a first for me in all my years of crow hunting. On Saturday one of our members in the group shot the first crow that came in and he flew about 200 yards out over a large field and then flatlined, stone dead. We could not see exactly where he went down because we where a ways back in the woods, but knew he did. During our three hour stand everytime a bird or birds would fly over this field they would just start screaming and that would alert us to there whereabouts, then we would start calling and the rest is history. As I was driving out of the field I noticed something in the road in front of me. It was the head shot bird that flatlined, he was lying flat of his back and completely eaten. All that remained were bones, even the wings were eaten as far as they could be. We had noticed a large Red Tailed Hawk flying back and forth when we would call but that happens just about every stand we make. Evidently this guy had landed on this dead crow and had lunch on us. It all made sense why the birds would scream over this field that we could not see. Nothing like the real thing being your best decoy. Anyone ever had this happen to them or ever heard of it before???????
I've hear of all kinds of meat eaters stealing the dead... I've never seen any of it.. best I've seen out here is vultures buzzing my spread at 50 feet.. never had them come so low as the couple hunts I did this year.
In our neck of the woods I think the Buzzard is the state bird. When we hunt they always are buzzing us, sometimes as many as 5-6 at a time. Yesterday while hunting we had a male Bald Eagle buzz us about 30 feet over the caller, that was a first as well. About 15 years ago I was duck hunting in South Carolina and I had a Bald Eagle swoop down and pluck a dead Teal right out of my decoys. I thought that was pretty cool.
LLast Saturday we shot a crow and he flew off with one leg dangling low. He kept going slower and slower until he dropped out of the sky about 300 yards out. About an hour later a bald eagle landed, ate part of the crow and then flew off carrying the left oversea.
Well one fine day my partner and I shot this crow that spun down like a helicopter...suddenly a red tailed hawk wheeled over twice then dived and dragged the hapless crow about 7 inches or so to the edge of the woods where it was mobbed by black capped chickadees.....not the first time this has happened either(a red tailed hawk dragging or carrying off a crow I shot ...In that case the crow was wounded and the hawk came over; checked it out then thrust its' craws deep into the crow before flying into a tree into the woods pursued by late arriving crows (about 7 or so).....