Most people don’t believe it when I tell them, or they’re just horrified at my ability to kill and eat cute little birdies, but blue jays are AMAZING to eat… stellar jays are very plentiful here, taste better than dove, have breasts AND legs to eat. They’re also very easy to hunt. We like the legs and breasts sesame fried in butter.
My kind of bird is pheasant or wild turkeys.
Thanks for sharing, Kiva.
I have often wondered about different birds and how palatable they might taste. Do we not hunt them because they don’t taste as good as dove and quail (the main small game birds around my parts) or does it all fall back on food prejudice the same way that people don’t eat weeds simply because we call them weeds.
I think its mostly because theres very little meat on most songbirds, its like why we go fishing for large fish instead of minnows, unless you’re in a situation where you have nothing else to eat.
Well yes, most songbirds wouldn’t be worth eating no matter how tasty they were cuz they’re so damn little… but I do think there’s a lot of food prejudice… there’s lots of foods that traditional peoples used to eat but that are out of favor (like crow for instance).
blue jays have a very nice amount of meat on them btw
Canadian geese are so yummy.
I’ve always thought seagulls look meaty, but something about them puts me off. . . kinda like eating a rat.
How did you “hunt” those birds BMW?
I like turkeys myself. They are pretty easy to kill with just a throwing stick, provided that one has played with a throwing stick…
I’ve heard about Portugese fishermen who routinely net songbirds in the morning with nets stretched between trees and apparently they are thrown into the stewpot for lunch. I ate pigeons in the desert and some people think they are all unclean rat-like animals but the ones I had were great and tasted like chicken, if not a little tougher meat. Maybe if they eat near trash in the city they don’t taste as good but I can’t say. I like turkey, grouse and larger game birds when available. I wouldn’t recommend eating any kind of gull as I have heard some bad things about them, that they taste pretty nasty so that is probably one bird I wouldn’t eat.
Yes sandwalker, the Chinese call them cob (sp?). We used to harvest them from the nests they make just before they are able to fly. That way you get maximum bird, tenderest, and ease/routine of harvest.
Crash, usually with a .22 rifle, but you could get them even with an air gun or bb gun or whatever… reckon a slingshot would work just fine too.
I know people who have eaten gull, and said that it was nice, fatty, dark meat. I have eaten crow, and found the same to be true, it is some of my favorite meat.
I really like crows, one of my favourite birds, I don’t think I’d eat them -_-
I’ve heard gull was the nastiest thing, but I think that was just one account I read. Maybe it depends on what the gull ate.
i feel the same way about bluejays, fenris. they keep me company all the time, i’d have a tough time eating one.
i ate a goose once, and have never tasted greasier meat.
For me, the more I like a creature, the more I want it to physically be a part of my body.
[Wilderix scrables to try to find a way to piss off Lonnie]
[dying of laughter pains] me too! somebody quick, piss Lonnie off! 
I’ve heard of people hunting [smaller] birds with boomerangs when they land. Not necessarily the loop-around -in-a-circle- and-get-stuck -on-your- neighbors -roof kind of boomerang, but a thin, light, quickly thrown bludgeon that at the very least stuns the bird to allow a follow-up strike, if not outright killing it on the spot.
Personally, I’ve used a blowgun in the past in a similar way - usually it involves a hide and ambush approach, but sometimes you can stalk, depending on the terrain and the birds you’re going after.
I’ve also read about using a sling, but that would take tremendous accuracy, not to mention a stealthy, speedy, off-the-hip “John Wayne Meets Tarzan” kind of throw.
Then there’s the bow-and-arrow/atlatl option, posing similar problems as with the sling above, as well as getting a little ridiculous in the overkill department. Nothing like spearing a five-inch bird with a five-foot spear, eh?
The bolo seems like a viable option for larger birds like turkey vultures, geese, turkey, etc. – something that can get tangled up in the three ropes. This requires some masterful cordage-making, not to mention some advanced knot-tying. I haven’t tried this one yet, either. (There are some major disadvantages to being trapped in a college town so your spouse can walk to work…)
Finally, speaking of cordage, there are hundreds, if not thousands of varieties of traps to be made specifically for catching birds. Books about traps and snares abound, if you’re patient and thorough.
Happy hunting!
~ SW