Jack and I headed up to Gabriel's Gully Road last night at sunset. The goal was to listen and identify a couple of peacock roosting spots. We have hammered this block for a very long time. Last year was significant with over 100 birds culled. They were a lot calling but very spread out.
We were heading for the first caller at dark when we heard another. Jack was focused on the mating hedgehogs in front of us. I told him what to focus on with a tap from the shooting stick. We closed the gap and Jack had a nice shot on a bird facing us. The instruction was to shoot it in the wishbone. He dropped it and led me to where it had fallen from the spot of the shot. This is very important if you want to recover these birds. They always seem to roost over the most difficult terrain. We scared the next one away recovering the first. Turns out this was a peacock that we shot and lost the year before. The photo will show the old breast wound that went through to break its leg. These are tough birds!
Jack spotted another big peacock with the thermal scope. It was at 60 m and I told Jack we could walk around and shoot it at point blank range. We walked around looking and Jack insisted it was in the middle of the bush. He turned on his light and it flew from right in front of us. Jack should listen to his Dad.
We stalked up to the original bird we heard and it was in a difficult spot. I took the shot and it jumped to the next branch. I gave it another and it dropped. After a good half hour of searching in tall grass and steep drop offs, we could not find it. It must have done a runner.
The next spot was a sole tree in a paddock. We saw a big peacock on the ground there as we drove up. I saw a hot spot so we approached. Turns out the peacock really did leave but there was a hen there. Jack shot it but I had to ring its neck as it was doing a runner. The lethal shot is shown in the photo below. Amazing that it was able to run at all. It is clear to me that hens roost at night even though they have eggs on the ground. She had no feathers on her lower abdomen.
Jack was knackered at this point so I went to look for the next one and could not find it. As I got back to the truck, it called, dammit. We headed home with two birds that went on the wall.
We will go back soon when Jack has more energy. Xmas is the cutoff for us. Normally we stop by the end of November but I need some more pelts.
