Feathered friend

Tom Sykes is always keen to test new ideas and to this end modified his owl decoy with interesting results

- Tom Sykes

I have always been keen to learn from others and test different techniques. Experimenting with tactics can be very effective on birds that have encountered just about every trick in the book. It also helps to keep my shooting interesting and gives me things to work on when I can’t get out of the house.

In recent years, I have seen more and more people using owl decoys on crows. They seem to be very popular in other countries, especially Sweden, where they have taken the art of using owl decoys to a new level. I have also noticed a trend to add feathers to the plastic decoys, to give them an edge by improving their realism. I have had great results in the past with plastic owl decoys but thought the addition of feathers stood a chance of improving my success rate. It was also just the excuse that I needed to get out my glue gun and do a bit of crafting.

Feathers