Innholdsfortegnelse for 10-Oct-2018 i Shooting Times & Country

Some weeks ago when sitting at a table having a cup of tea after an unsuccessful evening on a flightpond, a young land agent asked me what my favourite quarry species is. “Snipe,” I replied. “Some years ago, I went out before breakfast on Boxing Day in my pyjamas and dropped a little bird out of a wisp as they rose noisily out of the rushes.” The land agent smiled. “That sounds nice enough but I’ve always been very taken with shooting a good hen pheasant.” The rest of the crowd at the table laughed and a young lawyer, who I’m told is prone to bitterness as a result of being permanently dissatisfied with his job, said it was the “most boring response” he’d ever heard. The land agent sighed:…

Stolen gundog found A springer spaniel stolen from the South Yorkshire Game Fair on 29 September was reunited with his owner Jamie Mowbury two days later, after being discovered in a travellers’ campsite. Aristotle had been left in his dog box in a locked car, with a back window open slightly for ventilation. The thieves gained access and stole the gundog, despite the owner being 50 yards away. Mr Mowbury said: “I’m so relieved to have him back. My advice is to keep your dog locked up at all times in a padlocked box. Many thanks to South Yorkshire police, who were really helpful.” Shoots sign up to new Game Alliance More than 200 shoots have signed up as members of the British Game Alliance (BGA). Among them is Castle…

I read with interest the piece about hedgehogs (News, 19 September) which made the point that the protection of one species can have an adverse affect on another. The other evening I was walking on a small patch of north Essex farmland, which I have walked for 40 years with various dogs and a gun. I remember walking these same fields as a lad with a .410 under my arm in pursuit of a rabbit or two, along the hedgerows seeing armies of blackbirds giving out warning cries to alert the unsuspecting rabbits of my presence. The rabbits have all but gone as a consequence of myxomatosis; so have the blackbirds and the flocks of sparrows that once hung to the ripe corn. There were yellowhammers that darted in and…

Remember, you will only eat the most poisonous of mushrooms once. Do not take foraging lightly, but with a little care, a good field guide — Geoff Dann’s Edible Mushrooms is my current favourite but John Wright’s River Cottage Handbook No 1 is also very good; both are very practical books — a modicum of common sense and some rigid concentration and caution, you should easily survive long enough to begin to find your way around the mycological maze.…

Tied up with work and replying to emails at first light, it was getting on for 9am by the time I dropped the quad bike and began the long zigzag climb up the steep face and into the heather. Hoping for a final buck from the season, I carried the .308 on my shoulder and stopped every now and then to look. Skeins of geese were coming trickling off the Solway at extreme height, new arrivals from Svalbard and Greenland. The wind buffeted the thistle heads and made the yarrow nod in the long grass. Many of these flowering heads are now pink-tinted and old, and even the late scabious globes have grown hard and dry in the first frosts. I saw the deer from a long way away —…

The Midland Game Fair at Weston Park, Shropshire, in the middle of September was my last of the season. I haven’t been to that many because it is difficult to get away in the summer, but the Midland one is close enough for me to be able to feed round, push a few birds back and still be there by late morning. This year’s show seemed a little smaller but I felt it was the better for it. There were fewer stalls promoting or selling things that seemed out of place. There appeared to be more focus on the experience and the stages with the live music were a nice touch. Let’s hope the paying public and stall holders thought the same. From a National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) point of…

Latin name: Myrica gale Common name: Bog myrtle Other names: Sweetgale, common candleberry, Dutch myrtle, golden osier, meadow fern, sweet willow How to spot it and where to find it: This small suckering shrub forms dense thickets in peaty soil, typically acidic upland bogs and moorland, lowland raised bogs, wet heaths and scrubby fenland. It has a short, woody stem and dark green, oval leaves. It bears clusters of yellow and brown catkins at the ends of the shoots in spring, followed by small, yellow-brown berries. Interesting facts: The chances are you will smell bog myrtle before you see it — its sweet scent can be detected from half a mile away. It is a traditional components for Scottish wedding bouquets. It has been used as a midge and flea…

SNIPE Most of the early autumn snipe we see are local birds or foreign youngsters, but migratory adults are now arriving, most having moulted on their breeding grounds before undertaking migration. Snipe numbers peak in October, but that is as much about migratory birds being visible as it is about actual numbers. Snipe arriving in England and Wales are mostly from the east and north, especially from Germany and Sweden, while those migrating to Ireland and Scotland include birds that have crossed the Atlantic from Iceland. Once settled in a wintering area, snipe will become much harder to see, with a steady decline in numbers as winter bites, some of which is caused by birds moving to France, Spain or Portugal in severe weather.…

PRIORITISE Of the jobs that need doing on a shoot at the moment, dogging-in is probably the most pressing. Push straying pheasants from the boundaries of your shoot back into the middle — you will need a canine helper but make sure the dog is steady and doesn’t pick any of the birds. You will also need to start thinking about moving the feeders from release pens into the drives — do this slowly. Finally, make sure you have kept up to date with your foxing — in early October poults are particularly vulnerable. WIN Enter our competition to win an Orvis car boot liner, which will keep your vehicle clean from dirt, dog hair and mud. All you have to do is send in a good-quality, high-resolution photograph of…

1 Multi-bore shotgun cleaning kit RRP £46  www.furfeatherandfin.com This comprehensive kit contains all you need to clean your various shotguns. It packs neatly away in a waterproof bag that you can take anywhere. 2 Ptarmigan tweed plus twos RRP £299.95  www.schoffelcountry.com Plus twos are a safe option on the shooting field providing warmth and protection. Styled in Sandringham tweed, these plus twos are also 100 per cent waterproof, eliminating one of the main issues with wearing tweed. Try them out this season and test them against the great British weather. 3 Howard Leight ear defenders RRP £120  www.edgarbrothers.com These headphones come with a low-profile ear cup design which allows the stock of the gun to fit snugly without an annoying rattle every time you raise your gun. It also folds…

MY RECENT ARTICLE on French gundogs (Bring back the braque, 19 September) prompted a reader to suggest a follow-up article on Italian gundogs. I agree but, though I have travelled widely in Italy I have never been shooting there, so I haven’t seen an Italian dog working in the Italian countryside. I’m aware of the enthusiasm in that country for shooting and have vivid memories of my first visit to Italy with my parents. We woke one morning to the sound of gunfire. We were assured World War III hadn’t broken out, it was simply the start of the hunting season. Songbirds I never worked out what was being hunted but the sight of sparrow-sized plucked carcases in the butchers’ windows confirmed that the quarry was songbirds. This was more…

Foreign deer and the law STALKING I have a small collection of deer, sheep and goat skulls, most of which I have bought from online auction sites. I recently saw some musk deer advertised from outwith Europe, which I would really like to buy, but I am struggling to find out if they fall under the scope of international law. Do you know if it is legal to bring these into this country, or will I need a licence of some kind? Wildlife law is complex and detailed, and it is easy to fall foul of it if you are not fully briefed on the law as it applies to an individual country or, as in the case of the US, a particular state. Then there are international laws governing…

20-21 OCTOBER NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION FAIR Bisley, Surrey www.nra.org.uk 31 OCTOBER YOUNG SHOTS’ ACTIVITY DAY Grousemoor Country House, Llandegla www.basc.org.uk/events/young-shots-activity-day-thegrousemoor-llandegla/ 3 NOVEMBER NOVICES LQ DAY Lackham, Wiltshire www.basc.org.uk/events/novices-lq-daylackham-wiltshire-sw/ 9 NOVEMBER PARTRIDGE DINNER Washingborough Hall Hotel, Lincoln cmeeson@gwct.org.uk 12 DECEMBER SALE OF MODERN & VINTAGE GUNS Sotheby’s, London www.gavingardiner.com…

Foreign trawlers electrocuting fish in the Dogger Bank Special Area of Conservation are leaving behind “a graveyard”, say British fishermen, with the local population of sand eels being decimated. Sand eels are a rich food source for seabirds such as puffins, whose numbers have severely declined. Scientists say that this is due to climate change, which has disrupted food chains in the North Sea and North Atlantic and left many seabirds without food. With fewer sand eels around for puffins, their numbers look set to drop even further. Charles Clover of the Blue Marine Foundation commented: “The Chinese used the technology in the 1980s but abandoned it because of its impact on fish stocks and the environment. The mind boggles as to how the European Commission and European fisheries ministers…

As the winter approaches, our television screens will once more become infested with an array of celebrity reality shows. The contestants as they exit the show seem to be contracted to give a dewy-eyed interview. It would seem that to dress in sequins, bake badly or publicly fall over wearing ice skates involves the individual, whether soap opera starlet or portly former politician, “going on a journey”. What utter bunkum. I truly have been on an emotional and physical journey and thankfully not one soggy bottom nor Fleckerl heel turn have I suffered in the process. My journey began last winter, when I decided to improve the conservation credentials of a lovely slice of Suffolk pasture and hedgerows that I manage. Thanks to the support of Brian Branch, the owner…

There are many words overused these days and “iconic” is one of them. But if it applied to any bird, it applies to the golden eagle. I have had the good fortune to see one of these birds on several occasions, but one in particular will stay with me forever. As I was crossing the top of a Munro east of Pitlochry, one of these majestic birds simply appeared over the edge, level with me and no more than 20 yards away. What a sight it was. The golden eagle is the most widespread of the eagle family north of the equator, and that is despite the fact that man has removed them from many of their original haunts. They are huge compared with most of our other birds of…

According to the Kennel Club’s J-regs, the long list of rules that control and regulate trialling, “A field trial should be run as nearly as possible to an ordinary day’s shooting”. I can’t say that I have ever been to one that resembled an ordinary day’s shooting and I know I’m not alone. Reader Sue Knight emailed me recently to say that she has attended numerous HPR, retriever and spaniel trials in various capacities, including picker-up, marker, helper and spectator. Not a single one resembled the sort of day’s shooting we are all familiar with. This is hardly a new accusation. It is one that has been discussed and debated for a century or more, or ever since trials first started. The difficulty is, of course, that it is extremely…

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…

Any colour as long as it is white. That is the rule for the Ixworth chicken, a breed developed by Reginald Appleyard and named after the Suffolk village of Ixworth, where he was born. Appleyard, who is best known for the silver Appleyard duck he also created, started work on producing his ideal chicken in 1931. He aimed to produce a robust table bird that would also lay well and mature quickly. Using a variety of older breeds, ranging from the white Sussex to the white Minorca, plus white old English game, he launched his new breed at the London Dairy Show in 1938. Though it enjoyed initial success, the Ixworth came close to extinction in the 1950s following the introduction of fast-growing hybrid broilers. Its plight was recognised in…

You might be surprised to find me quoting from a book whose foreword was written by Jeremy Corbyn. Perhaps I was led astray by the way Amazon algorithms work on my Kindle. If so, I am grateful, for I was led to a book called Operation Lighthouse, written by Luke and Ryan Hart. The book was spawned by a tragedy. In July 2016, their father, Lance, murdered his wife, Claire, and 19-year-old daughter Charlotte at a sports complex in Spalding, Lincolnshire. He then killed himself. Luke and Ryan, both in their 20s, were working and studying elsewhere at the time. It emerged that they had been helping their mother and sister with plans to escape from their father, who was a selfish and domineering man. The fact that the murders…