Stealth pushpins
Sistema1927
You might try push-pins out of a blowgun. Silent, will not kill, but keeps noisy things like noisy magpies away from my bedroom window. If you miss, so what? It's a pushpin on the ground near the birdbath, not like a real, recognizable dart. If you make a hit, it will deliver a bee-sting warning and the innocuous little pushpin will fall out somewhere, unlike a dart, which will stick in there and will become "evidence."
You can do this from well inside a room through an open window.
You wouldn't believe it to look at them, but pushpins fly point first out of a blowgun. They have a rainbow trajectory, so range is a consideration. However, you have a known distance (like I do) and can "sight" it for that distance.
The pushpin caliber is a little smaller than the .41 of the usual blowgun and its safety mouthpiece, so you (A) have to keep from inhaling it (hack-cough!), and (B) have to keep the blowgun more or less horizontal to keep the pushpin from falling out.
I toyed with the idea of building a special blowgun for pushpins, but the regular blowgun did just fine in that application, so I abandoned the idea.
They also make great practice darts, since they are easy to remove from a wooden target backing. A regular dart will stick in there so hard you need pliers to pull them out.
Sistema1927
The only thing that has kept me from popping the two mangy cats that hide in the bushes under my bird bath is the fact that there is a nosey biddy across the street who sits in front of her window all day. This doesn't keep me from tossing a rock in their general direction, but I am afraid that a pellet gun or even a slingshot will have her calling the police on me.
You might try push-pins out of a blowgun. Silent, will not kill, but keeps noisy things like noisy magpies away from my bedroom window. If you miss, so what? It's a pushpin on the ground near the birdbath, not like a real, recognizable dart. If you make a hit, it will deliver a bee-sting warning and the innocuous little pushpin will fall out somewhere, unlike a dart, which will stick in there and will become "evidence."
You can do this from well inside a room through an open window.
You wouldn't believe it to look at them, but pushpins fly point first out of a blowgun. They have a rainbow trajectory, so range is a consideration. However, you have a known distance (like I do) and can "sight" it for that distance.
The pushpin caliber is a little smaller than the .41 of the usual blowgun and its safety mouthpiece, so you (A) have to keep from inhaling it (hack-cough!), and (B) have to keep the blowgun more or less horizontal to keep the pushpin from falling out.
I toyed with the idea of building a special blowgun for pushpins, but the regular blowgun did just fine in that application, so I abandoned the idea.
They also make great practice darts, since they are easy to remove from a wooden target backing. A regular dart will stick in there so hard you need pliers to pull them out.