We have been culling Yvonne's block next door for about five years. We always heard peacocks calling further on on in good numbers. We were there 29 July and the funniest thing happened when we were chatting with Yvonne and the worker. He gave us back a three-way magazine Jarno had lost years ago. The cost was a box of beer.
The next day after that hunt, a sleep, then processing, Blair and I headed home via Waikare Road with a box of beer for the worker. We decided to go talk to the neighbour on Draper Road about his peacock problem. He was pretty keen for us to come cull.
It took a little while to organise but jump forward two months and we met on Draper road a couple of hours before dark to scout and listen.
Spider took Blair and the quad and started on Yvonne's side. We have taken deer there before and last time we saw several but had no joy. They would look for a deer then make their way towards me on the next farm. It was a good edge to follow along a creek dotted with large pines for roosting peafowl.
I started on the new block after the worker pointed out the complications of the boundary to the south. I stuck to the eastern edge as there was plenty of ground to cover. I got ready just on dark and there were peacocks calling in many places. I thought the first peacock would be easy as he was so close. I spent a long time trying to find him with no luck. These pines were big with lots of places to hide. The possums were really annoying so I started shooting them to get them out of the way. The second bird was not so lucky but it still took a while to find a clear shot. Then I made my way uphill along a bush edge after noting many individual peacocks calling earlier. The plan was to find each one that I could.
The third bird was a challenge to get a shot on. He wound up flying across a gut then crashing hard in the steep paddock on the other side. I never did find him but the big peacocks became much more visible through the thermal scope. I am pretty shore I found most of the birds I heard calling. Then Spider caught up with me with Blair struggling behind. Blair, the carrier, took a load of birds saving me a second trip back.
Turns out Spider got two deer and they picked up several birds on the way back to me. Included was a pure white peahen. It was literally our fourth pure white peafowl in over 20 years of culling. Spider spent his last couple of hours just shooting possums. He quit counting at 100 or so and I had taken dozens myself. We could have carried on and shot another hundred possums but we were buggered by 2 AM. Spider walked back to grab the quad and we drove around and met him on Yvonne's side where he got the deer.
We went back to Spider's, hung up the animals, then got some sleep. The next morning we processed the birds and deer in quarters, backstraps, ribs, etc. Well, Blair did that while I harvested feathers. I caught up and started butchering birds after he had done half of them. Perfect breast and fingers were packed for eating. Thighs and imperfect breast meat was packed away for sausages, etc. Spider managed to skip out on any work. About 2 PM Blair and I made our way back towards Whakatane with our loot.
