On the morning before Tampere half-marathon, I decided to go hunt wood pigeons because I couldn't sleep. I took my trusty Baikal MP-153 shotgun and went to a place where my future father-in-law had seen pigeons.
On my way there, I heard a familiar sound. It was a grouse's warning signal, to tell others that a danger is approaching. I spotted a grouse guarding the area on top of a small birch tree. Too bad it's not allowed to hunt grouses yet. As I approached the grouse, 6-8 other grouses jumped up from the side of the road and they all flew away.
This is the field where wood pigeons like to hang out.
I was using a Vortex Recon R/T 15x50 for observing the area. It's a nice little monocular with a ranging reticle.
After a while, I heard faint pigeon sounds. Using the monocular, I soon spotted about 10 wood pigeons sitting on top of a power line about 500 meters away from me. Some farmer was already harvesting his crop, so the pigeons were eating leftover grains. They stayed there and wouldn't fly to my direction at all.
This is the place where I was planning to ambush the pigeons. They like to sit on this tall birch, where it would have been easy to shoot them with a shotgun.
My old knife got broken a few months ago, so I had to buy a new one. I got myself a Jääkäripuukko from Terävä, which is a Varusteleka's knife-brand. It has a nice leather sheath, which has a quite tight fit around the knife.
The blade is made from carbon steel, and it's quite sturdy. The handle is made from non-slip rubber, which is a big plus in my opinion. The knife seems nice, now it just needs more testing.
Next morning I got up early and went to another scouting trip trying to find grouses for Ruska to bark at. Normally it's quite easy to find them in the morning, but not this time. We didn't find anything, didn't even heard a sound. I wonder what has happened to the birds?
But here's a few pics from the trip:
