Innholdsfortegnelse for 03-Aug-2016 i Shooting Times & Country

IT IS a great shame that the RSPB has decided to withdraw its support for the Hen Harrier Joint Action Plan. The plan represents a chance to resolve conflict in the uplands for the benefit of wildlife and the local community. Indeed, by attacking grouse shooting in this way the RSPB is threatening a form of land management that is the only hope for many of our most endangered birds, including the curlew, for which the charity is currently campaigning. As for its renewed calls for licensing, all aspects of grouse management are already heavily regulated. Seeking further restrictions is unnecessary. Of course, there is wrongdoing in the shooting world, as with any other, but better to work with the community to try to root it out and encourage best…

Ex-forestry chief wins deer management award Dr Bob McIntosh (below right), former director of the Scottish Government’s Environment and Forestry Directorate, was presented with the Balfour Browne Trophy at Scone Game Fair last month. The trophy is presented biannually by the British Deer Society and Forestry Commission Scotland for excellence in, or for making a valuable contribution to, better management of deer in the UK. Dr McIntosh received the award for his work in driving forward beneficial initiatives, as well as fostering good relationships across the deer management industry and implementing changes to management on the National Forest estate. Dog food boss dies Phil Judson, who was managing director of dog food manufacturer Sneyd’s Wonderfeeds for 25 years, died recently after he was unexpectedly taken ill. Phil was the son-in-law…

What does a typical week involve for you? Most weeks I will spend a day or two out on shoots, providing one-to-one advice. Every place is different, so we can address a huge range of issues; from improving return rates to showing better birds, and reducing costs to adding variety to the quarry list. If you add in a talk on game conservation to college students, leading a shoot walk, and running a day training course, it’s usually a fairly full week. What is the greatest issue in shooting and conservation? Convincing an increasingly urban public that what we do is good for the countryside. This is especially difficult when there are still a few people out there whose adverse actions inevitably create headlines, increasing the negative perception of the…

 The Government says we need to build almost 250,000 new homes every year to stem the housing crisis. In rural areas, it’s not about numbers — it’s about affordability and the supply of appropriate housing on the right sites. These are key to unlocking the future viability of rural communities. “We have a chronic affordability crisis in the countryside” We have a chronic affordability crisis in the countryside. According to the Halifax Rural Housing Review, average house prices are 22 per cent higher than in towns and cities, with the average property price in rural areas seven times average annual earnings. There are a few reasons for this. First, we genuinely haven’t built enough homes for decades, but second, rural areas have been growing faster than urban areas continuously for…

Regular readers will recall that, last month, I appointed myself the High Park underkeeper to provide some assistance to Tony Smith, the honorary headkeeper. I now have a confession to make, which is that I deserve to be sacked, sacked on the spot and sent packing without even a bottle of sherry or a bottle of cheap red wine to take with me as a parting gift. For since becoming Tony’s deputy some time in June, I have barely put in an appearance; I have left him to get on with all the work. My only excuse for this shameful neglect is that I am struggling with a terrible addiction. You have probably leapt to a conclusion and you are wrong. No, it is not the demon drink. I have…

COWS IN TREES by Julian Earl (Quiller Publishing) Subtitled “a warm and witty memoir of a vet’s life”, this book by Julian Earl chronicles the events of his 30 years spent caring for pets and farm livestock. Full of amusing anecdotes, such as the time he surgically stapled his fingertip to a lamb’s scrotum, and cautionary tales (why never to stand behind a coughing cow, for example), it offers a good, fun read for anyone with a love of animals. Price: £12.95 (hardback) ISBN: 9781846892318 Get your copy for the special price of £10 with free p&p. Call 01939 261616 or visit www.quillerpublishing.com . Quote code: stcows. Offer closes: 30.09.16 STALKING FALLOW by John Thornley (Quiller Publishing) In this extensive guide to the challenges of stalking and…

One of the great things about owning healthy, fit dogs is that visits to the vet are rare. In the past six years I’ve been lucky enough to have only had to make annual visits to the surgery for what I call the spaniels’ MOT. A result of this is that my younger spaniel, Rowan, really enjoys these visits, unlike some of my previous spaniels, which had to be virtually dragged into the surgery. One decision I had to make this year was whether to continue with Rowan’s leptospirosis vaccination. There’s been publicity in the press recently about dogs having adverse reactions to this particular vaccination, but if you search hard enough you will find that there’s hardly a single vaccination that certain dogs haven’t reacted badly to. I decided…

Plant: Common teasel Latin name: Dipsacus fullonum Common names: Brushes-and-combs, Venus’s basin, Adam’s flannel How to spot it and where to find it: Growing up to 3m high, teasel has large cone-like prickly heads that bear rings of rosy-purple flowers. It grows in grassy places and riverbanks and likes full sun and moist but well-drained soil. Flowering begins in July and continues upwards and downwards until it has involved the whole flowerhead. Wild teasel is common in lowland parts of southern Britain, but less so in upland parts of Wales, northern England and much of Scotland and Ireland. Interesting facts: The bases of the stem-leaves are joined and fill with water, which often drowns small insects. This water was once believed to remove freckles. Teasel’s name is derived from the…

START SAVING Rockland Wildfowlers Association in Norfolk is holding its 2016 sealed bid sporting auction next month, from 4-18 September. Lots include stalking and wildfowling opportunities, plus equipment, art and accessories. Money raised will be used for land purchases and conservation work, to help secure the club’s future. Visit www.rocklandwildfowlersauction.co.uk for details. EAT Now that summer is in full swing, how about trying one of our tasty barbecue recipes? We suggest duck breast with white coleslaw. As well as the meat, you will need honey, sherry vinegar, soy sauce and a few other ingredients that are all listed on the full recipe, which you can read on Shooting UK at po.st/duckslaw. WATCH The Countryside 999 series following the work of the emergency services in rural Britain is currently being repeated…

Multiple World FITASC Sporting champion John Bidwell recently threw a party with a difference at his five-star shooting ground near Yoxford, Suffolk. The “Blast from the Past” get-together at High Lodge featured a glittering array of guests that included some of the finest Sporting and skeet shooters the UK has ever produced. Among the many friends Mr Bidwell has shot with over the years — and competed against — were former World FITASC and British Open Sporting champion Barry Simpson, the legendary all-rounder Wally Sykes, and back-to-back European FITASC supremo, gamekeeper Brian Wells. European FITASC champion Paddy Howe was there too, along with skeet hotshot Doddy Dodds. Friends came from all corners of the country. FITASC Sporting and well-known gameshooter Bill Joyce travelled from Devon and brought lifelong friend Philip…

Thirteen-year-old Emma Mitchell from the village of Crosby on the Isle of Man became the first person to be presented with the certificate of compassion by the Manx Hedgehog Conservation Society, after saving the life of a dehydrated hedgehog in Peel. A Best of British picnic concert at North Lodge Farm in Widmerpool, Nottinghamshire, last month raised £70,000 for charities, including the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance. Performers included “the people’s soprano” Rebecca Newman and Brit Award winners Blake. A three-year-old boy from Redruth, Cornwall, was attacked by six grey squirrels after he stopped to feed one of the creatures. The youngster suffered several bites before his mother was able to intervene. Experts have warned that 2016 could be the worst year on…

LEAD AND WILDFOWL Following the news that DEFRA has rejected the Lead Ammunition Group’s recommendation to ban all lead ammunition (News, 20 July), and the fact that some other countries are reversing their bans, is it now time for our representative bodies — BASC and the Countryside Alliance — to push for a new study into the effects of lead shot on wildfowl, especially as by the time any report is published, the UK will not be under any European pressure? I would like to see separate studies into the effects on coastal wildfowling and shooting over non-tidal wetlands. I appreciate that wildfowl move from one area to the other, but if it can be proved that lead shot, helped by tidal action, sinks out of reach of feeding ducks…

“The incident went on her notes as ‘dietary indiscretion’, which she shares with every Labrador ever born” Having dithered and danced around the issue of when to get a second dog since Christmas, a Labrador puppy was pressed into my arms last weekend. It was fate. Without any background or family connection to shooting, my wife has had to quietly make peace with my lifestyle, which touches on everything from stags and grouse to eels and ferrets. Her interest was piqued when I brought home a black Labrador puppy five years ago. Learning how dogs work on the shooting field has given her a new point of access to the sport. She is not particularly keen to take up shooting, but the idea of working her own dog on shoot…

1 Pigeon feeding habits at this time of year and over the different stubbles will be the same; the only major factor that will affect timings will be weather. The hotter the day, the later birds will feed. This could mean you will need to start shooting late in the afternoon. 2 A light breeze and cloud cover will always help take the heat out of the sun and encourage movement, but it is not a must. You will still be able to shoot good bags in less-than-ideal conditions. 3 You can afford to let a stubble that has plenty of food build, but be careful. The more stubbles appear, the more food becomes available. 4 Stubbles can be a hive of activity. When decoying you want to show an…

DAY ONE (6 MARCH) Collect Bashful and Bailey from the hunt kennels with (son) Oliver. My driving made them car sick, and they weed and pooped everywhere. Arrive home with two smelly, wet puppies. We clean and feed them, and all is calm. Their pre-prepared little home looks like a nativity scene — a lovely straw stable with red glow from a heat lamp. Will never forget (daughter) Lucy’s reaction when she came home from school and first saw them. She squealed with delight. DAY TWO At 6.47am Lucy and Oliver are dressed and outside playing with the puppies. We spend the day doting on them. DAY FOUR Another beautiful day and we are all outside from dawn. Oliver is trying to teach Bailey how to fetch. Bashful follows Lucy…

“The need for individuals to make their voices heard on factors affecting their river has increased” I have just completed one of the heaviest July weed cuts in recent memory. Weed cutting on both the river Test and river Itchen are co-ordinated to minimise the impact on trout fishing, with a period set aside in June, July and August. All cut weed is allowed to flow downstream and on this river is removed by a digger above the town of Romsey. If it were allowed to run through the culverts and carrier streams that flow through the town, there is a danger that they could become blocked and the town would flood. On this stretch of the Dever it is rare to cut the weed hard during all three periods,…

The breeding season is over for waders and most adult redshanks have returned to estuaries, where they spend the largest part of the year. Over the next few weeks they will change their flight feathers and moult out of their spotted summer plumage, acquiring a new, more uniform, grey attire. Juveniles will soon be joining them on the shoreline and mud flats, where they have a lot to learn before winter bites. Not only do they have to discover how to get at worms that are hidden beneath the surface of the mud, they also need to avoid having them stolen by gulls on the lookout for an easy meal. More importantly, they need to be aware of the threats posed by predators. In a study in Scotland it was…

“Various amusing shooting stories were told and retold, getting more improbable at each telling” I once found myself sitting next to a retired solicitor at a funeral. This grand old chap, called Francis, was in his late 70s at the time. (He has long since passed away.) He was an enthusiastic member of our little DIY pheasant syndicate. But his real love was pigeon shooting. He once said to me that there was no such thing as a poor pigeon, in terms of a shot — and the more I thought about it, the more I reckoned he might be right. Anyway, on the day in question, we were huddled together in the pew, waiting for the service to start. It wasn’t one of those funerals that are a celebration…

4 -7 AU GUST COUNTRYFILE LIVE Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire Tel 08442 491000 13-14 AUGUST LOWTHER SHOW Lowther estate, Penrith, Cumbria Tel 01889 563232 20 AUGUST HILLERSDON HOUSE CHARITY CLAYSHOOT Hillersdon, Devon Tel 01884 836800 26 AUGUST THE CLAYSHOOTING DTL CLASSIC CHAMPIONSHIP Bywell Shooting Ground, Felton, Northumberland Tel 01670 787827 27-2 8 AUGUST IRISH GAME & COUNTRY FAIR Birr Castle, Co Offaly Tel 00353 05791 21818 2 9 AUGUST LOADERS BEST PRACTICE WORKSHOP Cockrup Farm, Caln St Aldwyns, Cirencester Tel 01833 660869 1 SEPTEMBER BUCKS COUNTY SHOW Weedon, Buckinghamshire Tel 01296 680400…

The Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust exists to support gamekeepers, stalkers and gillies (both deer and river gillies) and their dependents, past, present and future. Our helpline is open at any time to answer queries, support people through a difficult time and above all “be there” for young people seeking to enter gamekeeping as a career, working keepers, their families, and those who are disabled, retired, lonely or isolated and elderly people. We offer grants for those in a wide variety of need as well as annual grants and an ongoing befriending and support service. A benevolent society to support gamekeepers has existed in different forms for many years. We are proud to announce that the Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust will have been in existence for 25 years in 2017. To enable our…

“Ground-nesting birds that stoats would prey upon will have had a much safer time and fledged more young” It will come as no surprise to most that predator numbers are a topic of conversation whenever a few keepers get together and discuss what is going on in their world. I’m not talking about all the protected ones here, but those that they are legally entitled to control as a matter of course. The numbers of foxes, rats, stoats and others are not static year on year, but fluctuate quite considerably at times apparently without any real reason. I’m sure some of you believe that there are more of them every year and there never seems to be any fewer but, in reality, most predators do dip in number from time…

The recent warm weather has caused a few training issues at Twistmount Gundogs. It has been a case of getting out early with the dogs and not doing too much with them. It is all too easy to forget they are still only young and tire very quickly — not only physically but also mentally. Dolly has just about finished her season so I have been able to do some training with her, but over the years I have found that a bitch’s hormones do take some time to settle down and they can therefore still be a bit erratic in their behaviour. I have been keeping her exercises quite simple and straightforward. Remy, the yellow Labrador, is almost six months old and he has been like a sponge in…

“Visitors are made to feel part of the family and everything is done to accommodate your needs during your stay” Nestled snugly between Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Poland and Slovakia to the east, the Czech Republic was part of Czechoslovakia until January 1993 when it gained independence, having also already become a democratic union in 1990 after 40 years of communist rule. In 2004 it joined the European Union but remains outside the eurozone so has not adopted the euro. The koruna is still used. It is a country steeped in tradition and its population is nearing 10.5million in a country whose area is 30,500 square miles. Manufactured goods, machinery, cars and Pilsner beer are its main exports. Alongside the more typical “stag weekend” exploits…

“Everyone is happy to see a yellowhammer picking up leavings; rats are less welcome” With the pheasant release process well under way on most shoots, careful feeding of our growing poults is a main task for the majority of low-ground keepers as July turns into August. As the birds begin to spread, so the feeding programme needs to move with them, and how we manage that can have big conservation consequences — both positive and negative. So, to put things simply, everyone is happy when they see a yellowhammer picking up the pheasants’ leavings under a hopper, but no one much likes to see a rat helping itself. Hopper design When I started off as a trainee Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust advisor in the early 1980s, five-gallon metal drums…

PETER MOXON, Shooting Times’s gundog editor for 40 years, was a great fan of the English springer, as his article headed ESSence of a good all-rounder reminded us (Vintage Times, 13 July). The piece was originally published in this magazine in May 1977, but though I can’t remember reading it when it first appeared, it was curiously familiar. This is because it was full of favourite Moxon phrases describing what he refers to in his book Gundogs: Training and Field Trials as “the ideal roughshooter’s dog”. He writes in the book that, “English springers, if of working stock, are natural hunters and retrievers, love working in cover and water and are easy to train, besides being very hardy and with a high resistance to distemper and other ills”. In his…

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 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, Pinehurst 2,…

No moth is more aptly named than the hummingbird hawkmoth, for it feeds in almost exactly the same manner as a hummingbird, hovering in front of a flower, and using its long proboscis (the equivalent of the hummingbird’s tongue) to sip the nectar. These entertaining hawkmoths fly by both day and night, in rain or sunshine, darting from flower to flower in a whir of wings. They are creatures of habit, often visiting the same flowers at the same time each day. They can be seen on the wing throughout the year around the Mediterranean, but they are summer visitors to the UK. Migrants from the first brood may reach our shores in April and May, but they are most numerous in August and September. Unlike all our other hawkmoths,…