Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Sep-2018 i Shooting Times & Country

The remains of a golden eagle ringed in the 1980s have been found near Loch Assynt in Sutherland. The bird was ringed as a chick in 1985, making it 33 years old at the time of its death. This is older than the previous record for a ringed eagle, which was held by a Swedish bird that died aged 32, making it the world’s oldest ringed golden eagle. The bird was ringed by the Scottish ornithologist Roy Dennis. Mr Dennis described ringing the eagle: “I was monitoring golden eagles in the north Inverness glens with my daughter Rona, home from university. We climbed to an eyrie near Cannich, which I had monitored for many years, and ringed a single eaglet — ZZ0005. “I also attached two small yellow wing tags…

Large numbers of resident birds have got the wildfowling season off to a strong start. Wildfowlers from Orkney to Essex have been reporting large bags with several weeks remaining until the migratory birds arrive in numbers. On Orkney, where goose shooting begins in July, local guide Raymond Shearer of Orkney Island Goose Shooting reports that goose numbers are at their highest in nearly 15 years. Mr Shearer told Shooting Times that he expects the Orkney Islands to offer the best wildfowling in Europe this winter. “Goose numbers in Orkney are at their highest in nearly 15 years” In the Scottish Borders, shooting agent Dave Virtue has already had parties out and is finding plenty of resident greylag and Canada geese, with numbers reaching 1,000 in some areas. Mr Virtue also…

“The birds are difficult to find. More people are looking for sport and it’s been a tricky summer” Imagine finding a stranger with their feet up in your favourite chair. Or the road rage you fight to suppress when someone has nearly run you into the ditch. You can probably now imagine how I felt on seeing somebody else’s pigeon magnet spinning next to a hide I had sweated to build on a field I had been watching for weeks. Pigeons were coming in fast. And so was I — something like the “green-eyed monster” Shakespeare describes before Othello goes on the rampage. The trespasser could not be allowed to go unchallenged. So, stomping through the spring rape, I was ready to give the unfortunate occupant of my hide both…

“For decades, springers were the only option but in the past 15 years PCPs have really come to the fore” Choosing the right airgun can present the newcomer with a minefield of choices, and picking a power source is usually the biggest quandary. For decades, spring-powered airguns were the only option but over the past 15 or so years, precharged pneumatics — often referred to as PCPs — have really come to the fore. Both options have their pros and cons and the choice will ultimately boil down to the one that best suits your particular needs. Precharged pneumatics Precharged air rifles hold a charge of air — usually between 180bar and 230bar — in an onboard cylinder or bottle. Pull the trigger and a valve releases a pulse of…

The gargantuan machines of mass harvesting have all but finished in the fields. The once golden landscape is now a patchwork of brown and dull yellow. The days when the stubbles were left are gone, but, luckily for me, quite a few still survive locally. This gives me the perfect opportunitytohavearakeaboutandsee what needs to be done. Time for a quick assessment as to what modus operandi I shall be practising, be it rifle, dog or net. In my mind, the answer is simple. The dogs are nowhere near fit enough to lamp, the time and effort to drop a net isn’t a profitable proposition, so the rifle it is. I like options, but logically this was a one-horse race. I grew up shooting rabbits with a .22 rimfire, hailed as…

One of the keenest gentlemen wildfowlers who visited these parts before the Kaiser’s War was a Major in the New Zealand forces. He had married an English woman and was in this country on a visit to his wife’s parents when I first met him. He was a fine figure of a man, approaching middle-age but very active indeed and was as keen a hunter of wildfowl as ever shouldered a gun. He was a most interesting character and during many hours spent on the houseboat I listened to his adventures when he was searching for gold in Alaska. “Cold,” he would say, “you know nothing of cold in this country. In northern Alaska it was so cold that if you took a kettle of hot water off the fire…

RIFLES Q With nearly all the Hodgdon reloading powders unavailable now, are there any alternative powders for my .243 deer reloads? A It is frustrating that a lot of Hodgdon powders are no longer available — due to new legislation and restrictions — especially if you have worked up a precise load with those powders that give an accurate grouping in your .243 rifle. We are all in the same boat, but don’t despair because there are some good alternatives available. If you shoot a .243 I am guessing you are using 70-gr to 100-gr bullets and Hodgdon H4350, H4831 or Hybrid 110V powders. For 70-gr bullets that would normally use Hodgdon H4350 powder, try using Vit N160 or Alliant RL15 powder instead. Obviously, they have differing burn rates so…

Further evidence has emerged of the devastating effect of salmon farming on wild fish. Reports from Loch Roag on the Isle of Lewis indicate that hundreds of wild fish heading to spawn in the river Blackwater may have been killed by sea lice, endangering the salmon population of an entire river. “These fish were eaten alive and a large number of adults have been killed by the lice” Large numbers of dying wild salmon have been found in a sea pool of the Blackwater. The fish appear to be dying as a result of damage from large numbers of sea lice. Around 80 dead fish were recovered from the pool; this constitutes half the river’s annual rod catch. Many more dead and dying fish were visible in the lower reaches…

Fieldsports organisations and shooting enthusiasts have rallied round to support a shoot under pressure in West Yorkshire. The shoot has been the target of a sustained campaign of theft, vandalism and disruption that increased dramatically following the decision to ban shooting on Ilkley Moor. The campaign culminated in a series of night-time attacks in which partridge pens were cut open and the shoot’s pheasants were driven out of the woods. In another incident, which remains unexplained, the shoot was visited by a private helicopter that appeared to hover over specific areas of the shoot, scaring birds out of cover crops. The shoot captain contacted Shooting Times to ask for help after West Yorkshire Police failed to take any steps other than to issue a crime reference number. Shooting Times brought…

1 Buffalo River shooting rest RRP £98.99 www.buffaloriversafes.com A shooting rest is a necessity when cleaning your rifle as it provides support and thus allows you to carry out full maintenance on the firearm. For less than £100, you will be able to fulfil that cleaning task with ease and the minimum of stress. 2 Sporting gloves RRP £55 www.sealskinz.com Whether you are shooting, beating or picking-up, gloves can come in handy. In whatever role you are playing on the shooting field, these gloves will keep you warm and dry as well as providing excellent grip and breathability. The fold-back trigger finger will help any budding Shot on a cold and wet day and make sure nothing goes wrong in that department. In short, these are great all-round fieldsports gloves.…

You’ve probably heard of “rewilding” — and may well already have an opinion on it — but as with many ideas that challenge the status quo, rumour and disinformation abound. Some see it as an opportunity to reverse current trends in declining biodiversity, so have made it their cause célèbre. Others see it as a threat to their influence or livelihoods and do their utmost to discredit it. Rewilding has been described as a “subversive landgrab”, ignorant and unjust, while rewilders themselves have been called fantasists, “disenchanted human beings” and the “boy racers of the conservation world”. While this makes for some entertaining Twitter debates, it has made rewilding into a toxic subject among certain groups. Nonetheless, this leads me to explore where the mutual interests between shooting and rewilding…

VETERINARY CARE Q Our bitch is due to whelp soon. How long should we leave her before calling the vet? A Most working dogs will typically whelp over a period of two to six hours but there are no hard and fast rules. Once your bitch starts bearing down and actively straining, make a note of the time because there could be complications if it goes on for too long without further progress. If a puppy has not been born within half an hour, take her out in the garden and see if walking around will help to get things moving. If there is still no progress phone your vet for advice, explaining for how long she has been straining. The interval between the birth of normal live puppies can…

The Scottish Partnership Against Wildlife Crime (PAW Scotland) has issued a warning over the use of drones to film wildlife. The intervention follows rising numbers of reports of drones disturbing protected mammals and birds. Andy Turner, a wildlife crime officer with Scottish Natural Heritage, said: “There have been several incidents involving drones disturbing seals at designated haul-out sites. There have been anecdotal reports of drones being used to film sea bird colonies and raptors. While the footage from drones in these circumstances can be spectacular, the operator must be mindful of the effect on wildlife.” Police officers have warned that drone operators may be committing a criminal offence. PC Charlie Everitt of the UK National Wildlife Crime Unit explained: “Breeding wild birds, dolphins, whales and seals are all protected from…

A new study by scientists from the GWCT, the British Trust for Ornithology and the University of Nottingham has examined the precise types of woodland habitat that are favoured by Britain’s breeding woodcock population. Volunteers visited 800 sites over 10 years during May and June to look for roding woodcock and to examine the makeup and structure of the woodland. Wet woodlands, particularly those containing birch, were found to support the most woodcock. The researchers believe that this is because the dense birch trunks provide good cover while the leaves encourage earthworms on which the woodcock feed. Woods containing a mix of broadleaved and coniferous trees were found to provide good woodcock habitat, particularly those with open spaces in them, whereas woods dominated by beech trees supported fewer woodcock. GWCT…

In recent days there has been an outpouring of media attention on those poor salmon, farmed in atrocious conditions in Scotland (see News, p6). Even more worrying is the raping of the seas that goes into the feeding of them and the haze of disease that the intensive farming creates in our once glorious sea lochs. This causes such damage to our native, rare, Atlantic salmon, a fish that has suffered so much at the hands of the modern man. However, I fear that in just a week many people, as they peruse the shelves of the big supermarkets and see the smoked salmon on buy one, get one free, will pick it up and put it in the trolley, none the wiser of the misery that it represents. We…

“OVP is a macabre example of why academics with extreme philosophies should never be let near real animals” I am bored of debating rewilding, not because the future of our landscapes and the communities that exist within them is not important — there are few things more vital — but because it is ridiculous to debate an idea so ill-defined that it is impossible to know what it is. This is a concept so woolly that some of its advocates happily deny bits that others promote as fundamental, while the People’s Front for Rewilding, the Rewilding People’s Front and a dozen other factions argue over the purity of each and every “rewilding” project. The truth is rewilding is snake oil, a scam, a con which grabs hold of random conservation…

The summer fruits are nearly at an end. The raspberries will keep going into autumn but the plums are taking over and soon the apples and pears that have survived the drought will be upon us and the annual cooking-apple glut will sweep the nation. In the hedgerows, the elderberries, blackberries and all sorts are ripening, all familiar enough; but what about the poor old overlooked mountain ash? It is not an ash at all, of course — being a member of the Sorbus family — but it looks rather ash-like. It is more correctly known as the rowan tree. The rowan has been working hard putting forth its abundant wild berries in great red or orange clusters along the hills and roadsides. Abundance Though there is plenty of time…

I picked up my first two ferrets at the Game Fair. Those were the days when ferrets were standard sporting merchandise and they could be easily found for sale alongside socks and wellies. I am glad that restrictions now apply to their sale, but I must admit that I might never have made the wonderful leap into ferret ownership without a moment of pressurised impulse and indecision. I had dithered about buying ferrets for many years, but my life is generally so chaotic that I always lacked the momentum to find suitable kits for sale. Having them thrust in my face made the decision for me and I was soon haggling for a carry box from the stall next door. Villainous antics The young kits were an absolute pleasure from…

“The quarter- and half-chokes left no prisoners, with the clays crunched into balls of smoke” As the new shotgun reviewer for Shooting Times, I was asked to look at the Beretta 486 Parallelo 20-bore side-by-side and consider whether it would make a good rough shooting gun. The short answer is yes, but let’s have a look at the evidence to support the argument. This model has been around for a couple of years now and is a gun I am familiar with, having seen a number in use by customers at West London Shooting School, where I am an instructor. The Parallelo was introduced as the replacement for the 471 Silver Hawk, which was not made in the same numbers as other Beretta models but is nonetheless frequently seen in…

GAMEKEEPING Q Our usually busy flightpond is devoid of any sign of duck at the moment. There are no feathers, no food and no ducks seen either flighting in or flighting out. We are worried this won’t bode well for the season. Any ideas what might have happened to the duck? A It is difficult to say without having a look, but my guess would be that the pond might have dried out during the summer and that the ducks have found somewhere else to feed and spend their time. Keep feeding, keep an eye on things and numbers will probably start to build up again. You can have almost as much fun watching and counting ducks into a pond as you can when you are shooting them. Don’t shoot…

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