Innholdsfortegnelse for 29-Aug-2018 i Shooting Times & Country

Eddie Eddie (Penrose Edgewater Scout) is a three-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever. A member of the Clevedon Wildfowling Association and the Gloucestershire Wildfowlers Association, he is a hardy dog who will happily sit on an iceberg having an ice cream in January or cuddle up with the grandchildren in front of the fire.…

Military working dogs remembered A permanent memorial to honour military working dogs that served their country in both World Wars and conflicts in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq is to be set up in North Wales on land donated for the purpose. The National Military Working Dogs Memorial charity was launched in June with the sole purpose of establishing a public monument that will give dogs from each military service recognition for faithful service. Read more about the dogs and donate at www.nmwdm.org.uk. 4,000 scouts and guides try shooting Thousands of youngsters were introduced to shooting at NORJAM 2018, a week-long jamboree that brings together scouts and guides from around the world. Twenty BASC-accredited coaches travelled to Norfolk for the event and gave clay shooting lessons. Speaking from the event that…

As we watched the heat build up over Scandinavia and Siberia this summer, how many of us thought about its effects upon ducks? How many dabbling ducks, such as teal and wigeon, failed to fledge any young, simply because the shallow pools to which they took their tiny ducklings dried up? On the other hand, perhaps some of the diving ducks — like tufted duck and pochard — will have done better, as falling water levels brought more bottom-dwelling invertebrates within reach. Mortality The annual variation in weather patterns can have big effects on ducks. So many things can go wrong; a late thaw, a dry summer, cold and wet conditions when ducklings are young, storms during the first autumn migration, a long freeze in a British winter or a…

IT IS A CURIOUS FACT that gun design and mechanised agriculture did more to make the modern gundog than anything else. Two hundred years ago, a sporting gentleman would have had a kennel of pointers or setters, backed up by spaniels for picking-up shot birds, but the retriever, along with the breechloading shotgun, had yet to be invented. In those days the grey partridge was the premier sporting bird in the British Isles, so the start of the season on 1 September was a day of much greater sporting significance than it is today. Every sportsman with a gun and a dog would be out in pursuit of what was then an abundant bird. Finding partridges in the cereal fields was the work of pointers and setters, so most birds…

I started wildfowling in 1972. Many of the fowlers that I shot with in those far off days started their shooting careers two generations before that in the 1920s. One of the things that strikes me the most about how times have changed is the attitude towards wildfowling equipment. We seem to be losing the will, or ability, to make stuff for ourselves. “I constantly remind my dog where ‘heel’ is with a prod with the stick” It’s now possible to buy just about anything connected to fowling online. I have no problem with that, especially when time is in short supply and money isn’t, and I applaud the entrepreneurial skills of those who see a gap in the market and exploit it. I’ve even been guilty of doing it…

Latin name: Armeria maritima Common name: Thrift Other names: Sea pink, lady’s cushion, marsh daisy, sea gilliflower, sea grass How to spot it and where to find it: During this scalding summer, you may have spotted thrift, a drought-tolerant native perennial that scatters bright pom-poms of candy pink along our coastlines, dancing above low hummocks of grassy, dark green leaves. The blooms nod at the end of slender stems, their joyous colour lasting from May to September — sometimes into even October. Thrift is an opportunist and can find a hold in diverse habitats such as salt marshes, mountain slopes and exposed river gravel. Interesting facts: Thrift will happily grow on limestone cliffs — among other places — because it can tolerate lead. There was an ancient but probably unfounded…

I was slumped against an old fence post, with water seeping through my not-so-waterproof trousers. Then I was sick again. “You all right?” shouted a friend further along the bank. “Sort of,” I grumbled. “Must have been that lasagne.” The poor lasagne probably had nothing to do with it, but the four whiskies the previous evening almost certainly did. For the next half an hour I held my head in my hands. Then the light began to glow and a teal whistled over my shoulder. Peering into the twilight, I noticed a shadow flitting across the water. At the last second, I identified it as a woodcock and managed to drop it into the shallows with my first barrel. Then the geese began, skein after skein of greylags honking across…

1 Outdoor Edge Butcher-Lite kit RRP £79.99 www.bushwear.co.uk Packed in a nylon roll pack that converts to a belt scabbard to allow easy access to each tool. This quality kit includes everything you could possibly need for a shooting or stalking adventure in the wild. 2 Instinct Accelerator chest waders RRP: £275 www.realtree.com These waders are built from the boots up, so they have a very lightweight feel, which makes it easy to manoeuvre around for a snap shot at a wily wigeon escaping out the side. The camouflage pattern is detailed enough for you to blend into the background while crouching in the mud on the foreshore or in a hide duck flighting. 3 Härkila Slimpack compact rucksack RRP £129 www.sportingkit.co.uk This light rucksack is packed full of features.…

“Jim’s lemon-and-white Clumber is mistaken by ducks for a sheep grazing the saltmarsh as they confidently flight into the splashes” If you are to believe most of the published works on shore gunning, the hardy wildfowler cannot truly call himself as such unless accompanied by a Labrador. Furthermore, we are told, this noble beast should ideally be of equine proportions. Legend also dictates it be named something suitably salty, such as Teal, Wigeon or Anser. One wildfowling scribe of some renown intimated that only the clinically insane would entertain anything other than the web-footed, retrieving machine that is the Labrador as a wildfowler’s dog. While I wait for the men with the straitjackets to arrive, let me tell you why I think my young cocker spaniel, Mabel, is a perfectly…

Has wildfowling become too easy? Some timeworn aficionados say that today’s wildfowlers are soft. Grizzled veterans of the foreshore bemoan the fact that today’s lot haven’t served a gruelling apprenticeship below the seawall. Instead, they simply pay a club subscription then saunter out to bag quantities of duck and geese with the minimum of effort and skill. But is this true? Or is it merely part of the tendency for each successive generation to shake its head in disbelief at the latest crop of youngsters? According to the mythology of fowling, the activity is rightfully the preserve of the rugged, self-reliant individualist. Evolving from subsistence hunting and market gunning, it became the sport of the those who truly understood the ways of the tide and fowl. Hardy gunners pursued their…

Looking for reasons for population change, there are three main drivers — chick production, the annual survival of birds in their first year and the annual survival of adults. For waders, we can use colour rings to estimate how many birds return to a site each year but that’s more difficult for ducks, which don’t have long legs and walk about on mudflats. The focus for studies is therefore on productivity; how many young birds are produced each year? It is also helpful to understand sex ratios, especially if females may be disadvantaged during tough breeding conditions. Wildfowlers are in a unique position to help understand age and sex ratios by taking part in the BASC duck and goose wing survey. After the strange northern European summer we’ve had, this…

As sure as night follows day, poachers, thieves and vandals have followed the combines. It is as predictable as it is worrying but there seems to be little let-up, despite an increased awareness among farmers and gamekeepers and improved responses from rural police forces. Quite what these people do when the corn is up escapes me. The cost in lost property and time is fairly easy to calculate; the anxiety that increases with each and every incident far harder. The Hunting Act — politically motivated and arguably unworkable as far as hunting with hounds goes — has at least given gamekeepers and farmers a modern law, which is far better than us having to prosecute someone under laws drawn up in the late 1800s. Threats and violence A recent trend…

I suspect that, like me, you frequently get emails asking you to sign internet petitions on subJects in which you have little or no interest. The latest one I have been asked to add my name to was requesting motorway service giants Moto, Welcome Break and Roadchef to allow dogs inside their buildings. The petition was started by Libby Carter, who argues correctly that no dog owner should leave their dog in a car in hot weather, of which we have had rather more than usual this summer. She suggests that dog owners have only two options: either leave the dog in the car — presumably with the windows open — or to tie the dog up outside the building, where it is at risk of being stolen. Neither choice…

Test your knowledge on wildfowling issues such as lawful quarry, cost of club membership and edibility with our mini quiz. 1 How many days are there in the wildfowling season in the UK? 2 How many lawful quarry species are you likely to encounter on the saltmarsh? 3 How many club wildfowlers are there in the UK? 4 What is the average price for wildfowling club membership? 5 What is our tastiest wild duck? ANSWERS: 1 173 2 It depends on which ones you include but it could be as many as 20. 3 About 9,000. 4 Around £200. 5 I’d vote for the teal. What about you?…

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 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 JEREMY HUNT Runs Fenway Labradors and a professional gundog trainer TIM MADDAMS Former head chef at River Cottage and runs a shoot in Devon SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior…

The river Clyde stretches for more than 100 miles before meeting the sea. In the 19th century the dale of the Clyde was home to thousands of compact but powerful working horses, the ancestor of the modern Clydesdale. The breed was first registered in 1877, and subsequently great numbers were exported around the world. So many went down under that it became known as the breed that built Australia.Selective breeding in the 20th century led to the Clydesdale becoming bigger: today a stallion may stand up to 18hh: most are at least 17hh. Though the majority are bay, roan and black are also permitted, usually with a white stomach and a distinctive broad white blaze on the face. Principally draught animals, they make good weight-carrying riding horses, while the Household…

I once watched a licensed bird ringer take three young barn owls from one of my nest boxes. He laid the owlets out on the grass, in a row. They barely moved. Having weighed and ringed them, he carefully placed them back into the box. Some weeks later, on an evening, I happened to be passing the site when one of the chicks took its first flight. It was a magical moment. I am not sure why these birds were being ringed, but it had something to do with monitoring the local population. I don’t know whether such intervention was strictly necessary, but I have no doubts about the skill of the ringer and his good intentions. Yet there is an inherent risk in capturing live wild animals, for whatever…

MOTH ALERT The hot weather this summer has created a perfect storm of wool-munching moths. So inspect your tweeds, hang them outside in the sun to air and put in the freezer to kill any larvae. Hopefully, your shooting kit will emerge unscathed but if not at least you have time to replace any necessary items before you head out into the field. And to protect against moths? John Sugden, who runs tweed outfitters Campbell’s of Beauly advises: “Lavender and cedar balls are the key. Pop them in drawers, back and front and between woollens. We have hundreds of jumpers in our shop and it works for us.” SIGN UP Before the season starts, sign up to the British Game Alliance (BGA), which was launched earlier in 2018 (Could this…

TESTING BIRDS FOR ALL LEVELS In response to recent correspondence about ethical shooting, poor Shots shooting low pheasants prick as many birds as good Shots shooting high pheasants. I am 77 years old and I ran a pheasant shoot in Wales for 28 years. It was a syndicate shoot with four different syndicates. It was a non-money-making operation with four or five keepers and we shot 60 days per season. The pheasants we produced were very good to comfortable. The Guns were the same standard; some excellent and some average. There does not seem to be much point in shooting birds that do not test your ability and give you no satisfaction. It might make up the bag but bags are very deceptive. I have seen 300 birds killed but…

August brings the first distant scents of autumn. Rowan berries are suddenly red enough to catch the eye and the bracken feels hard and weary. I have found the first autumnal wildflowers on the moss where the cattle are working. Swallows swoop over swathes of devil’s-bit scabious and there are white, waxy stars among the grass-of-Parnassus. These little plants often persist well into October and are a sure sign that change is on the way. The morning of the Glorious Thirteenth — the Twelfth was a Sunday — broke dull and heavy. We were mowing a field of oats and the tall stems fell in a wave above the cutting blades. Buntings stood in rows along the wire fences and watched us as we sweated and churned the crop, which…

The marsh harrier is a conservation success story. The drive to create more reed beds for species such as the bittern has been hugely beneficial to these impressive raptors that quarter marshes in the hunt for mammal and avian prey. From a nadir of one breeding pair in 1971, the latest published estimate (for 2015) was almost 400 pairs. Marsh harriers don’t only nest in reed beds; they will also build their simple nesting platforms within arable crops. By this time of year, youngsters will be starting to disperse and can turn up almost anywhere. Most of these immature birds will then migrate south into France, Spain, Portugal and the western countries of Africa, with some flying as far south as the equator. Some adult birds stay in the UK…