Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Jul-2017 i Shooting Times & Country

Some years ago, while loading in Perthshire, a cigar-chomping Frenchman passed me his gun just before the end of the day and I shot my first grouse. After the drive, while wandering down the hill, the keeper stopped and looked skyward. A hen harrier soared over the moor in the late afternoon sun. “Wonderful birds,” remarked the Cumbrian before carrying on through the heather. Some desperately want to believe that raptor-loving countryman keepers like him are an anomaly. But those who shoot know that they are the rule rather than the exception, and I imagine that in much the same way as that keeper no doubt was, you were saddened last week to learn that the number of breeding pairs of hen harriers has fallen across the country since 2010.…

Hunts raise £10k for air ambulance The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance has received a cheque for £9,843 from the Hampshire Hunt and Hursley Hambledon Hunt, which teamed up for the Great Hampshire Cake Sale. “The support that we received with cakes and donations was overwhelming; everybody was so generous,” said Sio Axel-Berg, one of the organisers. “We all understand how vital the air ambulance is for the rural community, whether it be for a riding, shooting or farming accident.” The donation also included £735 from recent hunter trial and cross country events, which were run by the Hursley Hambledon Hunt. Fieldsports variety at GWCT event The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s (GWCT) Levens Team Challenge has raised more than £7,000 for the conservation charity. The day of…

Early-season stalking has its challenges and one of the biggest is the presence of swarms of the dreaded midge (left). If the breeze drops, the hordes emerge and discomfort, if not torture, becomes the order of the day. Protective nets, jackets and sprays go a long way to easing the problem, but the presence of the mini-monsters can be a distraction and has certainly spared the lives of a number of beasts over the years. The choice of clothing in the warmer months is important. As well as protection against biters, it needs to be light enough that you do not overheat. For crawling on soggy ground, clothing and footwear must be waterproof — and let us not forget the danger posed by ticks (left). Awareness of ticks and regular…

“The decision on tail docking is payback for 10 years of injuries to working spaniels and HPRs” After 10 years of fighting for our poor wee working dogs, I was so pleased to be present at the Scottish Parliament when the vote was taken to permit vets to shorten by one-third the tails of working spaniels and HPRs. It was a huge turning point in animal welfare in Scotland and a very sensible decision that is now enforced in law. Beforehand, and since the vote, many animal welfare campaigners — and some urban MSPs — have gone to the press with poorly researched and emotive arguments which singularly fail to see any difference between a spaniel that works and one which spends its time in the house, getting the occasional…

“Come and see my duck pond,” said Ed, headkeeper of a sporting estate, as we drove around his Florida patch. The pond had no water, just 80 acres of maize. “We drain each spring, and then plant to maize,” said Ed. “When it’s ripe we shut the sluice, and the next tropical storm floods it in time for the autumn migration.” Feeding a pond is illegal in the US, but leaving a crop unharvested and flooding it is not. Game cover expert Bright Seeds says that it is selling a lot of buckwheat, to be grown on arable land beside ponds. This grows quicker than maize and is a good extra food source for ducks to use when they wander ashore.…

George Kynoch was born in Peterhead, Scotland, in 1834. He moved south to Worcester then to Birmingham, where he worked as a bank clerk in his early 20s before leaving banking to work for Pursall & Phillips of Whittall Street, manufacturer of percussion caps. In 1859 an explosion destroyed the factory and resulted in several fatalities. Two years later a new factory was built at Witton, a few miles outside the city, and he became the manager before buying the business in 1862, which then became Kynoch & Co. George Kynoch played a major role in community life. He was the MP for Aston and president of Aston Villa Football Club. Kynoch & Co’s rise to prominence was undoubtedly due to the grant of a Government contract in 1863 to…

Latin name: Apium nodiflorum Common name: Fool’s watercress Other names: Water celery, marshwort, procumbent apium How to spot it and where to find it: Apium is the Latin name for celery or parsley and comes from “apon”, the Celtic word for water, which is where you will find fool’s watercress growing — in streams, marshes, ditches, at pond edges and beside lakes and rivers. It has hollow stems, whereas true watercress has solid ones. The fool’s version’s oval leaves are more serrated and a little lighter in colour than true watercress. From May to August, it produces small white flowers with five petals. True watercress flowers have four petals. Interesting facts: The easiest way to check whether it is true or fool’s watercress is to smell it — the latter…

READ Hemingway’s Guns: the Sporting Arms of Ernest Hemingway by Silvio Calabi, Steve Helsley and Roger Sanger offers a comprehensive biography of the acclaimed writer through his collection of shotguns, rifles and pistols. It is a fine addition to the bookshelf for those with an interest in classic firearms or in Hemingway himself, whose hunting exploits featured prominently in his writing. It is available from Quiller with an RRP of £24.95. BUY TICKETS The Game Fair at Hatfield House on 28-30 July is almost upon us. If you haven’t got your tickets already, then be sure to take advantage of our special offer. Enter SHOOTINGUK when booking online at www.thegamefair.org or on tel 0844 776 7777 for a promotional £20 ticket offer. Visitors to the Shooting Times stand — number…

1 Alan Paine Loden men’s gilet £179.95  www.alanpaine.co.uk This water-repellent gilet has a pure wool exterior, a soft mock suede inner collar and a quilted outer collar, guaranteed to keep you comfortable while out in the field. Two flap-secured front pockets offer ample cartridge storage, while a pair of hand-warmer pockets are ideally placed for those colder days. Available in sizes S-5XL. 2 J.P. leather cartridge belt £75  www.farlows.co.uk If you are in the market for a new cartridge belt at an affordable price, then this offering from J.P. is for you. It has space for 25 20g cartridges in closed loops, with a hand-stitched stop band. Fits waist sizes 34in-50in. 3 Demijohn portable drinks chest From £975  www.demijohn.co.uk Whether you are having a tipple by the riverside or fancy…

“Why the unfortunate dog should have come to be regarded as a dustbin on legs, I don’t know” AS REGULAR readers of this column will know, I’m convinced of the merits of feeding dogs as natural a diet as possible, which basically means providing raw food. Not everyone agrees with me, of course, and one of my critics recently accused me of simply following the fashionable trend for BARF (bones and raw food), which, he claimed, didn’t provide the balanced diet that could be found in all the leading brands of complete dried foods. He did, however, agree with me that the cheap sacks of dried food were best avoided. Dogs have been domesticated for many thousands of years, but it has only been in the past 60 or 70…

“Nightjars and woodcock both use aerial displays and peculiar repetitive calls to stake their claim” In accordance with the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s (GWCT) latest advice to those who choose to shoot woodcock, I have started doing breeding woodcock surveys in the woods where I try to pot a few each season. By following a simple protocol, my results will provide valuable information about the status of resident woodcock and help support what we already know about them through the GWCT and British Trust for Ornithology’s national Breeding Woodcock Survey. Having pored over satellite imagery of one particular wood, which extends to almost 200 hectares in the heart of Cranborne Chase, I reckon the spot that I have chosen to do three repeat surveys will provide me with a…

Our modest feeding, no duck releasing and no fish policy has undoubtedly helped to maintain the broader biodiversity value of the pond. Alongside the mallard we have seen, but never shot, teal, tufted duck and shoveller. This winter brought a magical moment, with wigeon whistles at flight time, and I shot the first on Boxing Day. Other birds that would surely not have visited before we had a pond include moorhen, water rail and green sandpiper, and a migrating osprey once circled above on its journey south. But the real story is in the water itself; we have breeding frogs, toads and newts — nothing rare but very satisfying. Several species of dragonflies and damselflies breed here, and there are the smaller aquatic insects too.…

A high brown highlight WILDLIFE Q I know that the butterfly in my photograph ( above ) is either a dark green fritillary or a high brown fritillary, but the two species are so similar that I would appreciate it if you could confirm which it is. I photographed it last summer on Exmoor, where both butterflies occur. A Your photograph shows a beautiful, freshly emerged high brown fritillary, one of our rarest butterflies and restricted to fewer than 50 sites in the UK. There are a few scattered colonies on both Exmoor and Dartmoor, but the best place to see this species is on the carboniferous limestone hills around Morecambe Bay, where it flies in reasonable numbers. You were lucky with your photograph, as these are fast-flying…

Fifty years ago, broods of gadwall were only likely to be encountered in the strongholds of East Anglia, Fife and Lough Neagh, but these smart ducks have spread immensely. It was originally considered to be a winter duck and its presence as a breeding bird owes much to the capture of individuals in the 19th century that were pinioned and kept in wildfowl collections. They reared young that colonised local areas. The number of gadwall that arrive each autumn appears to be rising, as is the case in other European countries, adding to the burgeoning population of British-reared duck. The latest winter estimate is 25,000 but is based on 10-year-old data. Counts made by Wetland Bird Survey volunteers suggest that the total might have increased to 30,000 but that it…

14 JULY FARLOWS AND OUTSIDE DAYS — ONE-DAY INTRODUCTION TO GAME SHOOTING Stockbridge, Hampshire Tel 01722 780009 19 JULY FESTIVAL OF HUNTING East of England Showground, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire Tel 01733 234451 22 JULY NGO NORTHUMBERLAND & DURHAM TEAM CLAY SHOOT Stotley Grange Farm, Barnard Castle Tel 01833 660869 28-30 JULY THE GAME FAIR Hatfield House, Hertfordshire Tel 01707 252707 4 AUGUST HOLT’S CHARITY CLAY SHOOT AND AUCTION Sandringham estate, Sandringham, Norfolk Tel 01485 542822 28 AUGUST GAVIN GARDINER AUCTION OF MODERN & VINTAGE GUNS Gleanagles Hotel, Auchterarder, Perthshire Tel 01798 875300…

Children from Burnsall Primary School, near Skipton in North Yorkshire, recently got the chance to visit Conistone and Grassington Moor and learn about the work of gamekeepers, thanks to funding from the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group. Headkeeper Harvey Wiggins, who recently helped to ring a bumper brood of barn owls on the estate (as reported in our 21 June issue), taught the children about their local wildlife and habitats and gave them the chance to see some red grouse and their chicks, as well as lapwings, skylarks and a meadow pipit. Sonya Greenwood, administrator for the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group, said: “Harvey had a great selection of photos to show and discuss with the children about all the other types of ground-nesting birds that can be seen on the moor.…

TOO HIGH A COST I was rather surprised to see Shooting Times in its “To do this week” column (News, 28 June) mention petitioning MPs on the continued use of certain neonicotinoids. As a beekeeper who has read rather more than I would like regarding the harmful impacts of these chemicals on not just honey bees but all pollinators and other insects that come into contact with them, all those interested in wild game should be pressing for a ban on them. Forget the £33million in lost production of oilseed rape. If we kill the pollinators, the cost to the world will be billions. L. Waddell, Shooting Times contributor BAD FOR BEES It is apparent that Shooting Times is in favour of the use of neonicotinoids(News, 28 June); they have…

Dogs’ lives, as we all know, are far too short. To get a dog to 13 is a success, and anything beyond is a bonus, assuming the dog is fit and healthy. My last spaniel reached 15 years and two months, making her my oldest dog ever, and as she was still enjoying her walks and her food until the end, I regarded this as an exceptionally good innings. Compared with the short-lived giant breeds, most gundogs are fairly long-lived, with the majority reaching double figures and good numbers going on into their teens. I’ve probably met more elderly Labradors than any other breed, but that is most likely because there are so many Labs around in the first place. Only a minority get beyond 13, but those that do…

“My rash promise to draw some ducks needed to be fulfilled” One of my greatest joys over the 20 years that I have been involved in running the little Dorset shoot I’m a member of has been watching the development of our little pond. Way back at the beginning it was just a hollow in an arable field that collected run-off and held water for a day or so after heavy rain. I stuck my neck out and said to the boss that if he made us a pond, I would see to it that the ducks came to visit, and that we could then shoot a few. In the end we used a butyl liner, sandwiched between specialist matting to avoid the risk of puncturing by flints — not…

The spring clean is in full swing. This is something I usually put off until something happens and I am forced into quick reaction rather than the pre-planned activity that it should be. I have repainted the hutches and shed, fitted new hinges and clips on the locks and renewed hinges where necessary. Some of my hinges are only a year old, but they don’t last long where I am. Living on the sea front is nice, but the salt in the air shortens their lifespan tremendously. The ferret court has had some new piping fitted and I have bought some greenhouse shading to protect my charges from falling asleep in the sun. This can be fatal for ferrets and though you would think they know better, they don’t. Security…

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,…

The gentle giant of the chicken world, the Brahma is one of the largest of all the chickens. Despite claims that put its origins in India, most people believe the Brahma came originally from China. It was certainly imported into the US many years ago, and soon became the country’s favourite meat-producing bird until eclipsed by faster-growing varieties. It is a massive breed, with exceptional individuals weighing as much as 16lb (cocks) and 12lb (hens). Perhaps because of its size, the Brahma moves in a stately fashion, rarely appearing to be hurried. Its profuse plumage gives the impression that it is really an even bigger bird than it is, while its feathered legs and feet are distinctive. Because of their dense feathering, Brahmas are hardy and can tolerate low temperatures.…

“I like to imagine the boy reading out his essay on ‘what I did during the school holidays’” How would you react if attacked by a bear? Oh, and let’s say that at the time you happened to be just 11 years old. Luckily, they make kids out of strong stuff in Alaska. Or so we must deduce from a recent story in a local Alaskan paper called the Juneau Empire. This reported that Elliot Clark, aged 11, was walking near a wilderness creek with three family members when they were charged by a brown bear. The bear barrelled into two adults, knocking them aside to leave Elliot and his cousin in its path. “There were four of them in a line. My son was third,” Elliot’s father said. “The…