They also shoot jays and various other bird species they consider to be pests. That one caused me a problem on a driven shoot a few years back. Birds popping out of the cover and coming my way, too small to be either pheasants or partridge and wrong profile to be woodcock. But the Scot next to me keeps yelling "Shoot, shoot" . . . so I finally do whack one of the little critters. Walked over to collect it, showed it to the man who was running the shoot. Asked whether it was blackbirds we were supposed to shoot. Nope. My Scottish shooting companion had been referring to jays. Turns out it's not legal to shoot blackbirds . . . and I was still 23 short to make a pie.