Innholdsfortegnelse for 28-Aug-2019 i Shooting Times & Country

Our planet is sick and I have to admit it often feels like nothing’s being done. It’s not that people aren’t making lots of noise. In Tuly countless column inches were devoted to the later-debunked story about Brits heading abroad to shoot puffins. Then, in August, social media exploded with ecologically illiterate claims flung at grouse shooting. More recently, Carrie Symonds took to the stage at the Birdfair to talk about ‘sick and cowardly’ trophy hunting. Back in the real world, in countries like Namibia, big game hunting funds local education and is vital for conservation. I’m not sure when we moved into the epoch of post-truth animal rights activism, but it’s proving a tough rut to climb out of. Those of you who like Sylvia Plath might know her…

The Countryside Alliance (CA) is joining forces with This is Hunting UK to promote its newcomers’ week. The event, which will take place from 19 to 26 October, aims to introduce outsiders to the world of hunting. Polly Portwin, the CA’s head of hunting, said: “We are delighted to be working alongside This is Hunting UK to promote newcomers’ week and to offer the experience of enjoying lawful hunting activities to a wider audience. “We look forward to sharing photographs and stories from what is sure to be yet another very successful week for the hunting community.” This is Hunting UK chairman James Barclay said the organisation was glad to be involved. “As a voluntary grass-roots organisation we are delighted to put our full weight behind this most important event…

30 AUGUST YOUNG SHOTS MULTI-ACTIVITY DAY Greenquarries Shooting Ground, Rosley, Wigton basc.org.uk/events 5 SEPTEMBER LADIES’ BEGINNERS AND NOVICE CLAY TARGET SHOOTING DAY Waun Uchaf Shooting, Neath basc.org.uk/events 7-8 SEPTEMBER LANCASHIRE GAME AND COUNTRY FESTIVAL Woodacre Lodge Farm, Scorton lancashiregamefestival. co.uk 9 SEPTEMBER LINCOLNSHIRE GREY PARTRIDGE GROUP EVENING, 5PM Blankney Estate gwct.org.uk/events 15 SEPTEMBER GUNDOG RETRIEVING CHALLENGE GWCT, Burgate Manor, Fordingbridge gwct.org.uk/events 19 SEPTEMBER WOODLAND MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP Allerton Project, Loddington gwct.org.uk/events…

Guardian corrects shooting claim The Guardian has been forced to correct a claim that the National Trust for Scotland had scrapped driven grouse shooting on its Marr Lodge estate on Deeside. The story said the practice had been abandoned as part of a re-wilding drive. However, the newspaper appears to have confused driven grouse shooting with muirburn. The National Trust confirmed driven grouse shooting has not taken place at Marr Lodge for more than 20 years. Gamekeeper turns children’s author A former gamekeeper has become an author at the age of 76. Trevor Smith of Chester has teamed up with artist Bridget Tavener to produce A stoat called Longfellow. Mr Smith told the Chester Herald: “The story of A stoat called Longfellow is a small proportion of the…

A regional television news report included a piece on an African sacred ibis being spotted frequently around Northampton. This brought back memories of a sacred ibis we used to see on the marshes near Bungay in the Waveney Valley. It was around 2000 and my uncle was a member of a small marshland shoot. The first sighting of the ibis caused consternation and bewilderment for the Guns and us young beaters. My uncle took a photo and we later discovered what the mystery bird was. We would often see it over the following seasons, mainly flying around with a skein of Canada geese that haunted the area. Though it had a large wingspan, was of similar colouration and could fly as quickly as the Canadas, it was easily identifiable and…

Here is a question for you. When is a gun not a firearm? Easy, when it is a fire extinguisher. What? Shooting out a fire — that’s never going to work in a thousand years, I hear you cry. It might if you used an Antifyre pistole extinguisher. I saw one of these unusual devices for the first time when a friend bought one for his vintage car and wondered if he would be prosecuted for acquiring a firearm without a certificate. The Antifyre pistole is actually a powder fire extinguisher, which uses the combustion gases from a propellant charge to project extinguishing powder on to a fire. It is simplicity itself. The powder cartridge is made from thin sheet steel, filled with a fire-suppressant powder and sealed with a…

Could the decision by Waitrose (News, 14 August) to only market game killed with non-toxic shot be the beginning of the end for lead ammunition? In my lifetime I’ve seen lead removed from almost every product I can think of, with about the only survivors being the flashings on church roofs, plus of course shotgun and rifle ammunition. Church lead remains because of the insistence of Historic England; in contrast I’m sure Natural England would love to get rid of lead shot. Several countries, including Denmark, Finland and Switzerland, outlawed lead shot years ago, so the precedent has been set. The latest innovations in shotgun cartridges mean there are now genuinely viable alternatives. We all know that the days of lead are numbered, so why don’t we graciously give in…

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 Author of eight books and Sec. of the Shooting Sports Council 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, author, 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…

CHECK Keep a close eye on the health of game birds. Wet weather can put a strain on them, particularly when they are young. Listless birds, those that are not eating and any signs of changes in faeces can all be early warning signs of disease. As the season approaches, remember to observe the withdrawal periods for any drugs, including medicated feeds. Avatec and flubenvet, which are common feed additives, both have a seven-day withdrawal period. CHECK Get jackets reproofed and repaired. With only a few days to go until the wildfowling season opens and a few weeks until the partridges start, now is the time to make sure you stay dry. Several products are available that you can add to your wash when your jacket is laundered to restore…

NUMBER CRUNCH The introduction to the Sharpshooter column (31 July) reads “each year, more than 33million non-native animals are released into our countryside, eclipsing numbers of game birds by a large margin”. The article states “in 2017 there were estimated to be more than 23million adult sheep at large in Britain’s countryside as well as 9.8million cattle. By comparison the biomass of game birds pales into insignificance.” I wonder where these figures come from, bearing in mind one game farm alone is reported to rear between 8million and 10million game birds each year. I have a newspaper cutting dated 29 September 2013 on which the headline reads Beware the invasion of 50million pheasants. No one to my knowledge questioned these figures at the time, perhaps because they were on the…

The dust has now settled on the Game Fair. I took a rare trip out of East Anglia to spend two days trudging around the cornucopia of stands, exhibits, talks and demonstrations that extol the virtues of all things rural. On Friday I was a mere onlooker with my family and on Saturday in research for future articles. One minute I was patting a curlycoated retriever, the next talking with a gifted cabinet maker. The Game Fair has its detractors but there was one speaker in the Carter Jonas Theatre whose absence I regretted, and that was Dr Mark Avery. While he may have a vehement distaste for game shooting and the way the countryside is managed, he has credentials as both a conservationist and a scientist. I wanted to…

The year 1954 was the start of a new era in wildfowling. It was the year of the Protection of Birds Act. The freedom of the foreshore that everyone had taken for granted was suddenly in question. Aside from removing many species of waders from the legal quarry list and shortening the open season, the Act also led to a network of National Wildfowl Refuges on the coast that were no longer available to shoot over. Despite embracing many good aspects of all of this, wildfowlers began to feel rather hemmed in. Most of our current wildfowling clubs can trace their origins to this time. People who had once been loners, gathering a bird or two for the pot, or even for the market not so many years before, suddenly…

I will always remember my first day’s pigeon shooting. It wasn’t the most productive outing — at the end of it there were perhaps half a dozen birds in the bag — but for me that was enough. Looking back, though, it probably wasn’t a masterclass in good shooting; if my memory serves me right my cartridge-to-kill ratio was around 10:1. The first thing I did when I took the birds home was to breast them and see what they tasted like, because I had never eaten pigeon. I vaguely remember making a slightly overcooked stir fry. All these years later, my cooking has improved tremendously and I’ve come to learn what an extraordinary culinary resource the pigeon is. But I’m still no Andy Crow when it actually comes to…

Latin name: Aleuria aurantia Common name: Orange peel mushroom Other names: Orange fairy cup How to spot it and where to find it: As we move into September, the colours of our beloved countryside will begin to change to autumn’s vibrant oranges, reds and yellows. But while admiring the leaves turning on the trees, don’t forget to look down. You may spot the orange peel mushroom, which looks most unfungus-like. It doesn’t have a typical mushroom cap; it is more of a delicate sheet of orange flesh, folding to form a rosette or cup. You are mostly likely to spot it on woodland paths, grass and gravel. Interesting facts: Christiaan Hendrik Persoon named this species Peziza aurantia — the latter part meaning ‘golden’, referring to its striking colour — but…

1 Deerhunter Muflon jacket RRP: £355  deerhunter.eu The jacket is designed to keep the body warm in temperatures reaching -30ºC, which is ideal for a cold morning’s start on the foreshore. Another helpful feature on the jacket is the eight pockets for essentials, including two lower front pockets with integrated cartridge pockets and a wide opening for easy access. 2 Max5 XPO neoprene waders RRP: £189.99  prologicfi shing.com These waders are ideal for the foreshore as their great stretchability allows you to crouch down with ease. They feature an innovative front pocket with mesh compartments to carry all your needs. The knee pads are reinforced for longer lasting effects and the boots are lined with high-quality neoprene. 3 Decoy bag 300 RRP: £12.99  solognac.co.uk Made entirely of…

Severe outbreaks of heather beetle have led to significant reductions in grouse shooting on some estates in parts of Yorkshire. Significant levels of beetle damage have been reported on the North Yorkshire Moors, to the east of the county and further west in the Dales. Heather beetle is a naturally occurring insect. The beetle larvae damage the leaves of the heather, turning them brown. The damage is normally confined to small areas, but in certain conditions large outbreaks can occur, damaging hundreds of acres of heather. “It’s going to look a bit grim for people who are used to that beautiful purple vista you get in August,” said Moorland Association director Amanda Anderson. “There are swarms of these larvae, and they can munch acres and acres – so for that…

It was a quite a shock — though a somewhat narcissistic one — to see a photograph of myself on the front of the 31 July issue of Shooting Times. My shooting friends haven’t stopped phoning and the photo has increased my enthusiastic anticipation for the coming season. I am, however, somewhat miffed that the coverline implies that I am old! I keep telling my wife that I am not old, after all, I’m only 86 and have been shooting for 75 years. Keep up the excellent articles in Shooting Times. Dr J. Elfed Jones, Glamorgan The Editor responds: We are so pleased you like the image — a hard copy of it is in the post to you and I hope you enjoy wearing your fleece. I am impressed…

I seem to be having more Victor Meldrew moments these days. One of the latest was when, on the front page of our local paper, there was a huge photograph of a large gulley festooned with ropes to which were attached an awful lot of saffron-yellow ‘sails’. The gist of the article was that this was a large landscape-scale art exhibit, called Hush and sponsored by the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and open to the public for a couple of weeks from 19 July to 4 August. The problem for me was that it was on a Site of Special Scientific Interest that was designated, like the majority of similar land in Upper Teesdale, for the density of breeding waders it carries. Upper Teesdale now contains one of…

THE LIVES OF working dogs have changed radically over the past 50 years. We feed them differently, we house them differently. The only fundamental that hasn’t changed much is what we expect them to do. Half a century ago, a far greater percentage of working gundogs lived in kennels, with many never coming into a house in their entire lives. Today the majority — possibly the great majority — of working gundogs live indoors. The move into the house has been brought about by a number of factors. Perhaps the biggest is changing attitudes because for many of us our dogs are more than simply workers but are pets whose company we enjoy. Banishing them to a kennel in the garden may have been normal once but it is no…

Trophy weight loss problem CIC Q Can you advise about the weight loss a roe trophy will have as it dries out. I have been told that it will be 10 per cent of the wet weight but all the heads I have prepared have lost much more than this. The most recent, which I was sure was a medal head, went from 565g to 410g in three weeks, which is clearly a lot more than 10 per cent. Is there a more accurate way for me to estimate the dry weight? A Estimating the final weight of a trophy, be it roe, fallow or red, can be tricky. As you have found out, it can also lead to disappointment. Trying to estimate the likely medal class from weight alone…

Unsurprisingly given its name, the little gull is the smallest gull we see in the UK. They have a light, bouncy flight — rather like feeding terns — and you may see them catching insects. Adults have smart black heads in summer plumage; the plain upper wing and small size are the main identifying feature in the winter. Youngsters have the same strong black wing markings as an immature kittiwake. Late summer is a good time to catch up with little gulls, as they return from Scandinavian and Baltic breeding grounds. Some of the largest flocks, numbering 100 or more, can be seen in the Firths of Tay and Forth. Most little gulls travel south in late autumn so that they can pick prey items from the surface of the…

It is fashionable to hate trophy hunting. The Times slavishly regurgitates stories fed to it by campaigners opposed to trophy hunting. Other media outlets jostled to splash stories about hordes of British trophy hunters slaughtering puffins by the hundred in Iceland. In truth there was a mere handful of visiting puffin shooters — and none were Brits (News, 7 August). But the media is on the hunt for any type of shooting that can be smeared with the pejorative term ‘trophy hunting’. I go deer stalking and I have a few sets of antlers hanging up. I also have a kudu head lurking about the premises. Should I start filling sandbags? There has been a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the trophy-hunting issue, lumping weirdly obsessive ‘collectors’ and ‘canned’ hunting in…