WANTED FOR MURDERS

TOdd Gifford IS ANXIOUS.

From our elaborate hide of pressure-treated lumber and trimmed branches on the edge of a cut cornfield, he stares at a row of heavy pines a few hundred yards away. “Look at that mob way out there,” he says. A murder of 200 crows sits in the trees. From here, they look like Halloween decorations. Gifford—better known as the Crow Man around here—taps his foot. He picks up his 12-gauge o/u—the stock dipped in a skull-and-crossbones pattern—then sets it down. He does this again and again, his eyes never straying from the birds in the trees.

“A scout!” he says, suddenly.

We hunker down as a lone crow floats in over our spread of two dozen black flocked decoys that Gifford designed himself. I shoot first—and miss. Our mutual friend, Josh Dahlke, follows with his own miss. My second shot finds the bird high, directly overhead, and the crow folds on the wing, spiraling as it falls, and lands a few feet from the blind. A second crow comes in from behind us. I shoot, and again the bird spirals out of the sky.

“Look at that mob!” Gifford says again. The roosted birds flare at the sound of gunfire. They circle above the pines, then settle back into their dark fortress. Gifford goes out to retrieve the dead birds. “See’em all skagged out?” he asks, fanning out a wing. “Brown feathers. They’re juvies. Dumb birds.” He takes a deep breath, drops the birds beside the blind, and slumps back into his seat. “This ain’t distinguished, man. Feels like Florida.”

I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

“We got a pretty good wash last night,” he adds.