May well be the time of year.
We had a similar thing happen the other week.
Farmers wife hates Jackdaws.
We arrived at the farm to see about a dozen in a tree beyond the farmyard, rangefinder out , and found that at 80 yards they were too far. An attempt to close the gap lead to us being spotted and away they went.
Whilst mooching around the yard , one came into some trees at the edge , less than 30 yards from me.
I raised the HW100, took up stage one ,gently squeezed for stage two , a slight phut from the hugget silencer and the jackdaw still sat there ? Same process again , crosshairs on its bonce , slight squeeze, and the jackdaw jumped onto another slim branch . Took a a minute to realise that I had not locked my magazine in properly. Doh !
Third attempt and down it went . After retrieving the bird it went straight on to the muck midden for the farmer to see..
We then went to mooch for squirrels around 150yards away . After about 15 mins all hell broke loose . There must of been about 80 jackdaws going mad . They had spotted their fallen friend and clearly were not happy . If only we had stayed in the farmyard we would of had plenty of cover and even more opportunities.
Their guard was definitely down .
We attempted to sneak back to get a few shots away but to no avail .
Next time we are going to take a couple of decoys , hide in the tractor shed overlooking the midden and a sitty tree and hopefully give them a good bashing .
They certainly seem to have other things on their mind at this time , what with mating , nesting etc.