Innholdsfortegnelse for 30-Nov-2016 i Shooting Times & Country

Conservation is at the heart of everything we do and there is no better example of this sport-defining ethic than that displayed by David Sandford of County Down, Northern Ireland — the winner of the 2016 Purdey Gold Award for Game and Conservation (p.4). At the awards presentation, Mr Sandford revealed that the inspiration for his project came from a childhood memory of seeing a covey of partridges rising from a copse, a simple but evocative moment with which we can all empathise. That memory lit the fire of a burning ambition that is finally being realised — to re-establish a sustainable population of wild grey partridges over 2,000 acres of farmland where none have existed for decades. This was a remarkable task for anyone and to achieve it Mr…

The recent AH Warren Trust Charity Shoot has raised more than £20,000 for two local charities. The event, held at Coombe Farm in Crewkerne, Somerset, featured 52 teams competing over a number of challenging targets, and shoot organisers say that it was a huge success despite a wet start to the day. A three-day event held at the Warter Priory estate in East Yorkshire, including clay pigeon shooting, an auction and a ball, has raised more than £160,000. The money will be used to buy the Whitby Royal National Lifeboat Institution three new inshore lifeboats. Local councils are continuing to block around half of all prior approval applications to turn redundant farm buildings in England into homes that couldhelp address the rural housing shortage, according to the CLA. David Thompson,…

 Alex Hogg is chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association and is an experienced keeper on a 7,000-acre estate that puts up pheasants and grouse “Young gamekeepers deserve the same level of recognition as degree students from other disciplines” This month Peter Fraser, our vice-chairman, and I drove up to Thurso to attend the North Highland College UHI student prize-giving, with Helen Benson of the Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust. The weather was kind with little rain but some wind; in fact the waterfalls were blowing back up the hill on many parts of the road, which looked spectacular. The students were very courteous and polite and a credit to their profession. They have started controlling foxes and carrion crows around the college and the lecturer was telling us that, in the first…

Restaurants and pubs continue to push the boundaries with wild game. The wild game market surpassed the £100million mark last season, and is predicted to grow to £143million by 2020. The Countryside Alliance’s Game to Eat initiative is again under way to promote and celebrate the qualities of this healthy and tasty meat. “Wild game is sustainable, British and hard to beat. And its reach is forever widening,” said Game to Eat’s project manager Jack Knott. “Mintel research from 2015 showed that one in four Brits had eaten game in the past six months and a further 41 per cent were willing to try it. Supermarkets, butchers, farm shops and delicatessens are reacting to the growing demand. Last year supermarkets began to branch out from oven-ready birds and included other…

BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and journalist from the West Country BRUCE POTTS Shooting Times rifle reviewer and stalker DAVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL NGO chairman, Shropshire gamekeeper and keen wildfowler GRAHAM DOWNING Shooting consultant and sporting author PAUL RAWLINGS Gundog expert and A-panel spaniel judge CHRIS DE CANI Riverkeeper, with specialist knowledge of chalkstreams TONY BUCKWELL Veterinary surgeon with a special interest in gundogs TONY JACKSON A game Shot, keen stalker and former editor of Shooting Times TOM PAYNE Professional shooting instructor and avid pigeon shooter SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior CIC international trophy judge Contact the team Email: stanswers@timeinc.com By post: Shooting Times,…

2 DECEMBER BASC SHOTGUN SAFETY OFFICER COURSE Beech Hill Memorial Hall, Reading, Berkshire Tel 01244 573018 6-8 DECEMBER INTERNATIONAL GUNDOG LEAGUE RETRIEVER CHAMPIONSHIP Ampton Shooting Estate, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Tel 01449 740463 7 DECEMBER NGO THERMAL-IMAGING AND NIGHT-VISION TEST EVENING Westerly Court, Sparsholt College, Hampshire Tel 07590 885512 13 DECEMBER SPORTING AND COUNTRY LIFE ART AUCTION Dreweatts, Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire Tel 01635 553553 13 DECEMBER NGO CHRISTMAS QUIZ NIGHT Harlaxton Sports and Social Club, Grantham, Lincolnshire Tel 01476 590485 28 DECEMBER LONDON SHOOTING CLUB MEMBERS’ CHRISTMAS SHOOT The Ridgeway shoot, Oxfordshire Tel 07737 744950…

CPRE suggests solution to rural housing crisis A new paper by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says that landowners have an important role to play in solving England’s rural housing crisis. Under current policy, rural landowners can provide sites at below-market prices to build housing for local people in need — but recent legal and financial changes have made this increasingly difficult. The CPRE’s On Solid Ground paper, published earlier this month, suggests ways to make it easier for landowners to offer their land for affordable housing, including changes to tax legislation and to councils’ waiting list systems for social housing. Trinley Walker, CPRE policy and research advisor, commented: “Government must do more to address the lack of affordable housing in rural areas. Removing some of the obstacles…

I have recently sent in my application for a shotgun certificate (SGC) grant. I live in Lancashire and have just received notice that the application process will take a minimum of five to six months! This seems crazy. I wondered if anyone else has had the same information and if there is any way to speed the process up. LeeRamsh In some areas like mine, five to six months is good; renewals in my area are taking nine months or more. For some reason, possibly cutbacks, what used to be an acceptable time of around three months for a new application has turned into nightmare waiting times. BerettaSV1, Shropshire Last year my SGC renewal was processed in a couple of weeks, but our super-efficient firearms enquiry officer (FEO) told me…

WHAT IS IT ABOUT the death of a dog that affects us so profoundly? I cried more when my spaniel Rosie died unexpectedly, a month short of her ninth birthday, than when my parents died. Rosie’s death was premature, but both my parents lived well into their 80s. Now my eyes are full of tears because Rosie’s daughter, Fleur, has gone to the happy hunting grounds. I shouldn’t be sad, because at 15 years and two months she had a wonderfully long and sporting life. No, the tears well up because I’ve lost one of my best friends, a companion with whom I shared so many memorable days. Fifteen years is a long time. No longer will she look up at me with those wonderful deep-brown eyes, so full of…

“Otter numbers increased in the river and, after two summers, the rainbow trout had gone” With the trout season over and the river made ready for the winter work, I was kindly invited to a keepers’ day downriver for food and fishing on some well-established lakes (thank you to headkeeper Robert for the invitation). It can be a linear kind of work looking after a chalkstream and while you may maintain contact with the person immediately upstream and downstream, contact with others farther afield can be a bit sporadic. Over beer and a bowl of home-grown beef stew that had been cooking for much of the week (thank you, Andrew), there was much to discuss regarding the previous summer’s sport. Parts of the middle river suffered from overgrazing by swans,…

Plant: Spindle Latin name: Euonymus europaea Other names: Louseberry tree, pegwood, prick timber, skewerwood How to spot it and where to find it: A deciduous small shrub or tree that can grow in any soil but which thrives best in chalky soils, spindle is native to much of Europe. It can be found most commonly on the edges of forests and in hedges, scrub and hedgerows. It has squarish stems, smooth, grey bark and shiny, narrow leaves that turn a rich orange-red before falling in autumn. Its small yellow flowers appear in spring and are followed by four-lobed pinky-red fruits that split to reveal orange seeds during autumn and winter and look a bit like popcorn. Spindle can live for more than 100 years and grows to a maximum of…

Britain has a number of primitive northern breeds of sheep that evolved to graze thin-soiled upland pastures where more commercial sheep cannot survive. The Manx Loaghtan is typical of the group, which also includes the Soay and the Shetland. All have short tails and generally dark brown (moorit) wool, and are tough and able to withstand constant wind and rain. The Manx is the native breed of the Isle of Man, though its future was once threatened due to the introduction of other hill breeds. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of enthusiasts, this attractive breed has made a comeback, and today there are several flocks on its native island, and the British mainland. Both sexes usually carry horns, with some having four or even six. Because they are…

“Rural communities believe that there is a lot more that the Government can do to connect them to faster broadband. It is vital that going forward the Government has in place a coherent strategy for delivering connectivity to the final five per cent.” Countryside Alliance head of policy Sarah Lee comments on a recent Broadband Genie poll. £79.19million According to forestry experts John Clegg & Co and Tilhill Forestry, £79.19million worth of forest properties were traded during 2016.…

ENTER The Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust is hosting a raffle, with a chance to win a double kennel worth £1,300. Tickets are £1 each or £5 per book and can be purchased online at www.thegamekeeperswelfaretrust.com or directly by tel 01677 470180 or email enquiries@thegamekeeperswelfaretrust.com. The draw will be made at the 2017 Cocker Spaniel Championships at Abbeystead estate in Lancashire on 5 January. GET YOUR BIRD Whether you are going to shoot it yourself or pick it up from the supermarket or local gamedealer, those of you who like getting prepared early will soon be thinking about whichever bird is destined for the Christmas dinner table. It’s not unusual to pick one up well in advance of the day, so don’t leave it too late! WATCH We admit, you might not…

WELL DONE WALES I know there’s been quite a lot of negativity recently about the length of time it takes various police authorities to issue a firearm or shotgun certificate. I would like to relay my recent experience of the North Wales team. On Sunday, 13 November, for some reason I decided to check the serial numbers of my guns against my shotgun certificate. I found a discrepancy with one of the numbers, which had been overlooked by both the firearms enquiry officer (FEO) and me when the certificate was originally issued. I emailed the firearms team, asking for their advice. On Monday the 14th, I received a reply, saying that they would send me a stamped addressed envelope and asked that I return the certificate to them and, once…

“It wasn’t until we learned that three wild boar had been ejected from a nearby field that we twigged” We’re under way! The opening day on our small DIY shoot is now an entry in the gamebook and, all six Guns agreed, it deserved a four-star award for sporting birds, reasonable shooting and an all-round feel-good factor, despite a misting rain throughout the morning. You must understand that we release a mere 350 pheasants and some 75 duck, have five Guns, a guest Gun and a stalwart half-a-dozen beaters who, with several spaniels and a couple of Labradors, work their socks off for a good lunch and a brace of birds. The object of the exercise, now in its fourth year, is to provide sporting birds, moderate bags, an excellent…

Julian Warren (right) runs the shoot with his two underkeepers Jake Porter and Malcolm Clark. A former beef farmer who sold his suckler herd to finance the shoot, Julian operates a busy sporting enterprise, and with 45 drives and a wealth of heathland and rough cover, there is plenty of space. “We have 250 acres of gamecrops, mostly maize but with a little bit of wild bird mix. We don’t go into the woodland until after Christmas and it’s mostly pheasant ground, though we do get some partridges out of the woods where there is bracken,” he said. Julian rears and releases a large number of birds in order to keep the shoot running at top gear throughout the season, and has recently changed his supplier. “I’m now using Nigel…

For a long life a dog needs good food, plenty of exercise, the right genes and a lot of luck. As dogs get older they need less exercise, but even elderly dogs enjoy getting out, and I’m convinced that exercise gives important mental as well as physical stimulation. A reliable indication of a dog’s state of health is its enthusiasm for walks. If you go on to the Kennel Club’s website, you will find profiles for all the individual breeds, as well as an indication as to how much exercise they require. For most gundogs, it is “more than two hours a day”. However, apparently both a Clumber and a cocker can make do with “up to one hour a day”. I’ve always given my spaniels plenty of exercise, partially…

Outfoxing winter predators GAMEKEEPING Q Are there any benefits to winter fox control? We are doing less lamping and haven’t really got the time to run a snare line in the winter. There are certainly foxes about. We were wondering if it was really necessary to control them all year and if there would be any direct benefits to our shoot if we did? A If you release partridges or have a stock of wild ones controlling foxes in the winter is essential. If you release pheasants, it is less important as they should be roosting well by the time they are 12 to 14 weeks old. Foxes will, however, take birds blown or scared off roost and will still eat a certain number no matter how well grown they…

The brambling is a winter visitor – a cousin of the similarly sized chaffinch. Over the past month, large numbers of both species have been crossing the North Sea to avoid the snows and freezing conditions of continental Europe. Bramblings seem well able to tackle the broad stretches of ocean between Norway and the north-east coast of Britain while chaffinches are quite likely to travel south through Denmark before making the sea crossing. The number of bramblings that migrate to Britain each year varies markedly, reflecting the amount of seed available to them elsewhere. In a “good brambling year” we may see up to a million birds but numbers may be as low as 50,000 in other years. Bramblings are likely to be found feeding under beech trees but look…

“In the deer enclosure, the stag thrashed around with his antlers, in danger of spiking hinds” The local hunt came over my land the other day. As a direct consequence, I lost one of my deer. The incident has set me wondering about the future of fieldsports in this crowded, privately owned countryside of ours. My conclusion is that the hunting, shooting, fishing, ferreting and so on depend not so much on the diktats of politicians in far-away Whitehall, but on local goodwill. We forget this at our peril. I had been away. As I drove into the farmyard, I heard the hounds. It turned out the meet was some miles away, but the hounds had split into several sub-packs, one of which just happened to come flying over my…