Innholdsfortegnelse for 05-Jun-2019 i Shooting Times & Country

Some weeks ago, I drove to Kent. The journey out of London and down the A20 is suburban travel at its most tedious, but as I crossed the water to the Isle of Sheppey and arrived at Elmley nature reserve, the grind suddenly became worth it. Walking across that marshscape in 2019 is like stepping back 50 years. Curlew call and lapwing cry fill the air while rabbits scurry through the scrub. The ecological advantages of being separated from the mainland, crucially biosecurity and an absence of badgers, are very clear. I was there to see conservationist Mary Colwell to talk about the public’s perception of predators. When I arrived she was chatting to other notable figures from the world of conservation, including Ian Newton and Philip Merricks. If Elmley…

Accusations of malpractice levelled against Bettws Hall game farm by animal rights group Animal Aid have been dismissed by the local council. This was the result after a formal inspection. The activists trespassed on to the hatchery at Newtown, Powys, and took photographs of four dead pheasants in laying cages and birds with protective beak and spine coverings. However, a spokesman for Powys County Council, advised: “Joint inspections have been carried out with Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) officials and the premises have been found to be satisfactory during those inspections.” Richard Croft of Bettws Hall told Shooting Times: “Guys came up from the fields and managed to get into our laying hens. They caused havoc and stressed the birds by either putting dogs underneath the cages or tapping…

Standing on a peg can be a joy but there is something about walked-up shooting that I never tire of. With such delights as an evening’s roost shooting or a good duck flight, it evokes a classic hunter-gatherer thrill. Reading your quarry and surroundings is a major part of getting the most out of a walked-up day. You also need to understand how to work safely as a team of Guns while letting the dogs do their job. Walked-up shooting is where many Guns start their careers before progressing to driven days, but I’m not always sure that is the right way round. Walked-up sport can be very dangerous if someone’s gun handling isn’t up to scratch. From a shooting point of view, it is also very testing. Varied quarry…

SO FAR Sika has done some basic water retrieves and I have focused on her confidence. Labradors take to the water quickly and naturally; cocker spaniels are more commonly a little slower to become comfortable. Sika, however, is one of the most confident puppies I have ever seen. She simply flew in the first time with no fear and swam as if she had been doing it for years. “When it heats up, most of the time spaniels and Labradors would rather be sunbathing and relaxing”…

To do this I am going to start by sitting her down on the opposite side of the water and simply call her back to me. I use a couple of my “nanny” dogs to help her understand what I want. Once she has swum confidently from one side to the other, I introduce a retrieve. I leave her and a dummy on the bank and walk to the other side. I then ask her to hunt and call her across. For one session if she gets this, it is plenty. In the weeks that follow I will build her up to a marked retrieve, then memory retrieves on to the far side of the bank. Eventually I will take her to new bits of water and repeat the exercise.…

Rabbit as a dish seems to have fallen from favour over the past 10 years. I don’t fully understand why. Perhaps it is the idea of eating a creature that resembles a family pet, or maybe people view preparing and cooking the meat as too steep a challenge, though it almost certainly isn’t. Rabbit, treated properly, has a wonderful flavour and texture. It is also incredibly versatile. This recipe is an all-time favourite of mine. It is beautiful on the barbecue and a great way to introduce rabbit to people who have always avoided it or simply not had it for a period of time. The Indonesian rabbit satay (sate kelinci) originated in Java. It is a popular dish that usually comprises farmed rabbit on skewers with a nutty soy…

Latin name: Stellaria media Common name: Chickweed Other names: Stitchwort, white bird’s eye, chick wittles, satin flower, tongue grass, starweed How to spot it and where to find it: If you are a keen gardener, you are probably already aware of chickweed. Fast growing, quick spreading and tenacious, it rapidly forms cover, thriving in fields, waste ground, footpaths and gardens. The light green, oval leaves grow in opposite pairs along a thin, branching stem, which has a single line of fine white hairs on one side. The tiny white flowers grow singly in the leaf axils of the upper leaves. The star-shaped blossoms open in the sun and close during grey, cloudy days and throughout the night. Interesting facts: The common name says what it does on the tin —…

GUNDOG It’s time to start tightening up your gundog training with only three months until the partridge season starts. “You’ll never struggle to get a dog to hunt, retrieve or find birds, that is natural to them,” says Ellena Swift, gundog trainer and Shooting Times contributor. “It’s the steadiness that needs work and practice.” Brush up on whistle commands. Work on ground where there are plenty of good scents to distract the dog and practise walking to heel, sitting and recall. Go back to using a long line if you think it’s necessary. CHECK Following reports of trespassers releasing birds and damaging pens, check your game pen security. Take a watchful walk along the public roads nearby and ensure that no keepering equipment can be seen that could attract the…

It would be so easy to write of rural notes and reflections. But there are issues that, unless addressed, will bring about the destruction of a way of life. That way of life has ensured over decades a reasonably balanced approach to conservation and the monitoring of many species that would otherwise be in danger. As we now know, opponents of shooting — notably the smug Chris Packham, his associate Mark Avery and a Dr Ruth Tingay — have formed a group called Wild Justice. The object of this new organisation is to “fight for wildlife” — in other words, bring a halt to live shooting in all its forms. The recent shambles created by Natural England’s abrupt decision to revoke general licences to kill pigeons, crows, rooks, jackdaws, jays,…

The month of May is a feast for the senses. Diving lapwings hurl themselves with a twisting abandon almost to the ground with a wild “wheet a-wheet” before wheeling up and hurling themselves downwards again. Lambs bleat greedily and the air heaves with the scent of snowy hawthorns in flower. On the lower field — “a good bit of dirt”, according to my grandfather — we are planting cabbages. Pigeons watch covetously as the Massey Ferguson flecks the chocolate soil with dark green cabbage plugs. It is a dilemma — let the birds build up for a day or two and reward myself with a good bag over decoys, or keep them off and prevent serious damage right from the planting of the crops? Tonight, with my new individual licence…

KEEPA, in the meantime, is running very well. After my previous piece (Too much, too young, 1 May) we gave him some intensive sessions, learning to ignore the dummy bag and listen to me. While a test clearly cannot replace a shoot day, the important thing was what the dummy bag represented. It could be something as simple as a pile of birds left on a Gun’s peg; at distance I am attempting to push Keepa to a wounded bird and he simply sees the pile as an easy pick. The bottom line with this is it was actually a confidence issue, in that if he didn’t pick his retrieve, he began to lose faith in me and go for the easy one. After a lot of basic hunting exercises…

One of the things I like about sprockers — and I write as the owner of one — is that they don’t have to conform to a breed standard because there isn’t one. A sprocker is a cross between two breeds, springer and cocker, that were once the same, so it is really a matter of turning the clock back to produce a traditional spaniel. My sprocker, Emma, looks like a very small springer, taking after her liver-and-white springer dam rather than her lemon-roan cocker sire. If you want to know more about sprockers, visit www.sprocker.org,the website of the Sprocker Spaniel Club (SSC). It is an informative and wide-ranging site and, though it may concentrate on sprockers, it includes plenty of general interest, such as the danger posed by adders…

“Management deer” STALKING Q As a newcomer to the world of stalking with a rifle, I am keen to build up my experience by undertaking paid stalking because this seems to be the most direct route in for me. As yet I have no permissions of my own. I have seen guides offering “management deer” or “cull stalking” in this country and further afield. What is “management deer” and is it a type of stalking I should consider? A Stalking guides and providers use a number of descriptions to advertise the services they can provide. These generally relate to the quality of the trophy that the paying guest can expect to have the chance to stalk. In general, the South African term “management hunts” is used to describe outings for…

The honey buzzard and common buzzard may share a name, in English, but they are not closely related. The two species are brown and about the same size but their silhouettes are very different. The honey buzzard has a broader wingspan and is less stocky than the common buzzard, with a long neck and a small head, both features that enable it to raid bee and wasp nests in search of grubs. Another design feature that shows its adaptation to its specialised feeding regime is the structure of the feathering around the beak and eye. Small, compact feathers overlap in what looks like scales, to protect from stings. Honey buzzards are migratory species, spending the winter in Africa and flying north to Europe, where the UK is very much on…

Did you see those pictures of climbers queuing to tackle the summit of Everest? It seems to me that by engaging in an extreme form of commercial mass tourism, they are demeaning the mountain. It’s no way to treat nature — let alone humans. Eleven people have died on Everest so far this climbing season, some of them as a consequence of having to wait in line for up two hours in a vicious wind chill to negotiate the final half a mile. Like all sports, mountaineering has a tendency to self-harm though overpopularity. Those climbers who ladle out large sums of cash to be herded up Everest using professional guides and fixed ropes are, perhaps, the mountaineering equivalent of the fabled City types who turn up, in brand new…

Fledging successes There was good news for British birds last week. On the Knepp Castle estate in West Sussex, a pair of white storks has been sighted nesting in an oak tree. If chicks fledge this will be the first successful nest in southern England since the end of the Civil War in 1651. In Cheshire, a pair of peregrine falcons has fledged three chicks on the Eaton estate in a nesting box installed on a clock tower to protect the birds from planned restoration works. A spokesman told Shooting Times that independent experts say this is the first confirmed successful peregrine falcon nest seen in the tower. Like all birds of prey, peregrine falcons are an indicator of good biodiversity and a healthy environment. Clay thief sentenced In what…

The news that Natural England (NE) was revoking the general licences that covered the control of corvids and other problem bird species at 36 hours’ notice (News, 1 May) came as a bit of a shock. It was all the more so because NE had written to stakeholders a few weeks previously in response to a call for a judicial review into the way the licences had previously been issued from a group headed by, among others, television presenter Chris Packham. NE assured its stakeholders that it thought the licensing system in place to be robust and defensible. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Birds were laying, chicks were hatching and NE was telling us we weren’t allowed to control corvids. To do so at such short notice, and at…

We are finally seeing some good weather and longer nights. This makes training a pleasure for the handler to be out and about. It also means that, if you work set hours, there is time in the evenings to spend a decent couple of hours with your dogs. However, it is easy to forget that, while you may enjoy the warm days, most of the time dogs — particularly spaniels and Labradors — would rather be sunbathing and relaxing. It is not uncommon for dogs to overheat when it gets warm and they are trained or walked. If they are really driven, dogs don’t realise they need to take it easy. It requires the common sense of the handler to make sure they do not overdo it and put their…

Last month I thought I might be in need of therapy. It will not be necessary, at least not for the reason given, which was my seeming inability to catch any trout. I have at last started catching them; my season is now properly under way and I am once again a contented fisher, except that it looks as though I won’t be able to go fishing again for a couple of days. However, therapy may still be needed — not just for me but for half the gamekeepers and shooters in the country — because it seems that the way of life we all love is increasingly under threat from men who hate us. I fled to the north of Scotland at the end of the week to spend…

THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM 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…

It has been a long time coming, but at long last we have had a good spell of weather for the bees to work. The sun does not matter that much — it is more important that the temperature is warm enough for them to function and that the wind is not too strong. Up here the latter is important as a very strong wind makes flying difficult. Loads of yellow pollen is coming in from the fields of marsh marigolds, late because of the cold spell. In an odd way the cold has helped as it has stopped many of the flowers from going past their best too quickly. LW…