Innholdsfortegnelse for 26-Oct-2016 i Shooting Times & Country

May I begin by asking you to turn back the page and take a moment to reflect on the pure beauty of the noble, glorious-looking bird gracing this week’s cover. For we are now in pheasant season proper and that bird is at the epicentre of our sport. We have entered the period we have planned and worked so hard for and yet, when I hear some sportsmen talk of gamebirds in general terms, I do wonder if some of us are inclined to take the humble pheasant for granted. Standing by the fire, post-shoot, with stiff drink in hand, they wax lyrical about missile-like grouse and twisty greys. In comparison, the pheasant appears to be the equivalent of a Volkswagen Beetle in a Ferrari showroom. Perhaps familiarity is the…

Countryside Alliance head of shooting campaigns Liam Stokes and Moorland Association director Amanda Anderson appeared before a joint Parliamentary Petitions Committee and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last week to offer evidence ahead of the debate on driven grouse shooting, brought about by two petitions, one calling for its protection and the other for a ban on the sport. The call for a ban was launched by former RSPB conservation director Dr Mark Avery, who also appeared before the joint committee to provide evidence, along with RSPB species policy officer Jeff Knott. The purpose of the session was to inform the cross-party group of MPs about the issues surrounding grouse moor management ahead of the debate in Westminster Hall on 31 October. The speakers covered topics such as muirburn,…

29 OCTOBER CLAYSHOOTING LADIES DAY The Oxford Gun Company, Oakley, Buckinghamshire Tel 01844 238308 9 NOVEMBER ONE-DAY GAME SEMINAR Westminster Kingsway College, London Tel 020 7802 8391 11 NOVEMBER CHELTENHAM COUNTRYSIDE DAY Cheltenham Racecourse, Gloucestershire Tel 01242 513 014 18 NOVEMBER BASC TASTE OF GAME FUNDRAISING DINNER Larchfield Estate, Co Down Tel 07773 367287 22 NOVEMBER THE DEER INITIATIVE BEST PRACTICE EVENING The Crooklands Hotel, Kendal, Cumbria Tel 07855 606877 27 NOVEMBER KENNEL CLUB CANINE SPORTS SCIENCE SEMINAR Kennel Club Building, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire Tel 01296 318540…

Snowdonia hydro plans withdrawn Controversial plans to build a hydro scheme on the Conwy Falls in the Snowdonia National Park have been withdrawn following objections from conservationists. Applicant Innogy Renewables UK announced it was dropping the plans shortly after the consultation closed. Mark Lloyd, chief executive of the Angling Trust and Fish Legal, said: “The rush to grab generous subsidies for hydropower has been yet another problem for migratory fish populations throughout the country. “These schemes generate irrelevant amounts of energy in the grand scheme of things but they can do untold damage to fish and other wildlife, and despoil the beauty of the landscape,” he continued. “The National Park should never have entertained the possibility of permitting power generation in such a special place.” Inverness home for new Land…

I have complained for many years regarding the BBC’s bias on many things, in particular its attitude towards shooting and the countryside. In order to make itself look to be a champion of the countryside it set up that remarkable programme Countryfi le. I prefer to refer to it as “Countryfool”. You recently asked for opinions on how the BBC could better represent rural affairs (News, 19 October). Personally, I am past caring what the BBC or its minions say, think or do. I no longer watch or listen to the BBC in any of its forms. What I do strongly object to is being forced to pay a fee (the licence fee) to an organisation whose views are totally at odds with my own. This is similar to what…

Numbers of white-tailed eagles in Scotland could rise from 106 to 221 pairs in less than a decade, according to new research commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage. Looking further ahead, the study said that, given enough suitable territory, there could be as many as 1,005 pairs by 2040. BASC has given training to 26 Police Service of Northern Ireland staff involved in firearms licensing to give them an appreciation of the process from the point of view of a sporting shooter. They learned about shooting seasons, quarry species and the need for sound moderators, before heading to a rifle range. The Scottish corncrake population has declined for the second year in a row, according to RSPB Scotland’s annual survey. This year, 1,059 calling males were counted, a drop of three…

John Dickinson died on 2 October at home after a short illness. He leaves his wife, Hazel, two daughters, Jane and Sue, and five grandchildren. John shot all his life and was well known throughout Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire, but spent much of his time shooting in the Isle of Axholme in North Lincolnshire, where he lived. His real passions were pigeon shooting and partridge shooting. He ran Bull Hassocks shoot for many years, shot with the Kexby Syndicate, and helped out on shoot days at Pollybell Farms, where he enjoyed seeing the regeneration of grey partridge. John loved gameshooting, ferreting, fishing, and always had a good dog by his side. He was also a game dealer for many years, collecting game from local shoots. John was a true…

“The brute bellowed at the intruder, rushing at him in a series of feints designed to intimidate and repel” When October comes, it helps to have friends in high places — and by “high” places, I mean altitude. Invited up to stalk in the Grampians by a grouse keeper friend in Kincardineshire, I leapt at the chance and found myself on the hill a few days later with stags roaring all around me. Banks of low cloud rumbled past, closing down the visibility to just a few yards of heather and moss. Roaring issued from all points of the compass as we picked our way over the moss, and one persistent voice seemed to make the peat vibrate beneath us. He roared and bawled, then fell at length to a…

Lee Shafer (right) took over the Feather and Fin shoot three years ago, prior to which he had little gamekeeping experience. As a full-time electrician, he has had to try to fit shoot duties around his job and, as with all part-time keepers, this has taken dedication and commitment. This commitment was tested earlier in the year when a heavy storm threatened to decimate the young poults that had recently been put into the release pen. Lee and some willing helpers managed to catch more than 400 of the poults and brought them back into a shed and even into his kitchen, placing them under heat lamps to dry them off. As a result of these efforts, he only lost a handful. Rearing the pheasants has given Lee a different…

“Another of the NGC’s strengths is its overall scale — with 1,000 shoots contributing, it provides strong data” Just about every shoot that I have visited keeps a gamebook that records full details of what has been shot over the years. Such records can be hugely helpful to me in my role as a game management advisor, giving a real insight into how a shoot has fared over the years. When things are not going so well, good records can often help me to diagnose what is wrong, and maybe even point to when problems started. Good shoot records are part of a much bigger picture too, and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) is a sort of clearing house and co-ordination centre for them. Through collating the records…

Heavy horses are perhaps taken for granted — but taking things for granted is rarely a wise decision. They always seem to have been around and are a solid symbol of the British countryside and its agricultural and industrial heritage. In medieval times they were prized for their ability to carry knights in full armour. They graced the cover of the Jethro Tull album Heavy Horses, and George Orwell must have had in mind their reputation for hard labour and generally mild temperament when he cast one in the form of the unquestioning Boxer, who worked himself to death for the pigs in Animal Farm. So with their image woven into the fabric of British culture on several levels, you would think that the future of these giants, which weigh…

FEW THINGS ARE certainties in the world of field trialling, but one that you can be sure of is that the winning dog at this year’s International Gundog League Retriever Championship will be an accomplished performer in sugar beet. The championship is being held in Suffolk, at Great Livermere on the Ampton estate, and here sugar beet is a dominant crop. One of England’s four surviving sugar-beet factories is only half a dozen miles away at Bury St Edmunds, so the fact that beet is so widely planted on the estate is hardly surprising. Sugar beet was first grown in Britain in Norfolk in the 1900s, with the initial factory built at Cantley in 1912. It proved a popular crop and was soon planted widely elsewhere, with eventually 18 factories…

“It would be an industrial equivalent of widdling in the well that would trash the chalkstream habitat” There was a certain inevitability about the Government overruling a Lancashire County Council decision to refrain from fracking on a site near Blackpool earlier this year, though how this sits with the championing of devolved powers by the same bunch I don’t know. But ever since heads were turned by cheap shale gas across the pond, there has been a push to resume the UK’s embryonic fracking operations. They ceased a few years ago after a few earth tremors sent chimney pots tumbling in another part of Lancashire. There are two sites owned by a fracking company within a few miles of the river on which I work. The area has been designated…

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 rifl e 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 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…

Some birds are definitely migrants and others are residents, but there are some that fall into both categories, including the goldfinch. Though we can find these delightful little birds in most parts of the UK in every month of the year, flocks are actually very mobile. There are big movements of goldfinches each autumn, with a lot of Scottish birds flying into England and some of them going farther, to southern Europe. Goldfinches that you disturb from a coverstrip or roadside verge this week may be in Spain in December, returning in the spring. Once, food would have become harder to find in the winter, as supplies of thistle seed disappeared, but now goldfinches are as at home on a bird feeder as greenfinches or blue tits. Numbers have increased,…

“The Essex Jamboree shotgun experience gained the sort of media coverage that cannot be bought” I was a boy scout, once. I made it to the dizzy height of patrol leader. Actually, I think I got the job because I was big for my age. This was in Denmark, where my family lived at the time. I was a member of an international scout brigade. Most of us spoke English, and our parents tended to be UK or US ex-pats. As scouts, we were a sort of foreign legion. It was all great fun and I have retained an affection for the scouting movement ever since. Anything that helps gets youngsters out into the countryside has to be a good thing. In my day, we all used to carry sheath…

“Things taste better when you make them yourself. And they taste doubly better when you’ve hunted the animal yourself. So, whether you’re fishing for the salmon or going hunting for a boar, that’s a big part of it. You feel more connected to what you’re doing and what you’re eating.” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed to his online followers that he prefers to hunt for his food. 68% A recent study by wildlife charity Froglife and partners from the University of Zurich suggests that common toads have declined by 68 per cent over the past 30 years in the UK.…

CRACK SOME NUTS While everyone has heard of the Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating, you might not know that the day was once also known as Nut Crack Night in northern England. Girls anxious to know the name of their future husband would traditionally place two hazelnuts side by side and give them names. It was a bad sign if the fire caused the nuts to burst apart, but a good one if they burned together. DONATE The Bat Conservation Trust has launched a Halloween appeal to help raise funds to protect this oft-misunderstood animal, which is at the forefront of people’s minds at this spooky time of year. The Trust aims to raise £4,000 but is still some way short of its target. For more information or to donate, visit…

The Countryside Alliance (CA) has welcomed new guidelines published by the Crown Prosecution Service aimed at tackling online abuse, harassment and intimidation via social media. Earlier this month, director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders announced: “Social media can be used to educate, entertain and enlighten but there are also people who use it to bully, intimidate and harass. “Ignorance is not a defence and perceived anonymity is not an escape. Those who commit these acts, or encourage others to do the same, can and will be prosecuted,” she said. Commenting on the recent acquittal of a huntsman following a collision with a hunt saboteur, CA chief executive Tim Bonner said: “Last month, Mark Doggrell and his family were subject to a campaign of harassment and abuse following his acquittal by…

STILL SHOOTING I was very pleased to see your piece on shooting from a wheelchair (Sporting Answers, 14 September). I have multiple sclerosis (MS) and found the only way I can carry on shooting is from a quad bike. When I first got MS I explained to the owner of the shoot that I wouldn’t be able to come any more (after being there for 35 years). He told me that a quad would always be available for me. I do not shoot as well as I used to but it is so good to be out with everyone. I had not been able to find anyone to give me tuition until last year, when I met instructor [and regular contributor to Shooting Times’s sister-titleShooting Gazette] Ed Watson, who said…

“Businesses employing seasonal workers are likely to feel the effects of any change keenly” As debate goes on among political leaders about how the UK’s severance from the EU should be approached, so the uncertainty for landowners and rural businesses across the UK continues. Can we, as a nation, grasp this moment to establish better policies for rural businesses and for the environment? Will agriculture be ignored in trade deal negotiations? Will regulations that frustrate us all be replaced? And will workers from outside the UK continue to play a crucial role in the rural economy? Employees from the EU and beyond have long made a major contribution to a wide range of rural sectors, not least land management, food production and the tourism and hospitality industries. In agriculture alone,…

“Freeze, do not move at all; it is movement that animals and birds note first if the wind is in your favour” One of the things about moving from being the conductor on a shoot day to becoming another member of the orchestra is that it gives you time to observe a little more. Not, you understand, that many headkeepers miss much anyway, but doing many of the things you never did brings a whole new insight into the day. I’ve being doing a little loading this season, and one of the things that I’ve noticed is just how much movement there is by those standing in the butts. Over the years I have been given many pearls of wisdom by those whom, at the time, I considered “old” headkeepers.…

“Having given the gun a go at the clays, I am looking forward to the day when she speaks in earnest against the pheasants” I am a great devotee of hammerguns. They may be mechanically quite primitive compared with the fantastic modern over-and-unders that so many people use today, but they are the most elegant and graceful of all vintage sporting guns. It gladdens my heart to see that there is a bit of a renaissance happening in their use because many people are recognising them for the excellent objects that they surely are. Some years ago, I bought a very nice Mortimer 16-bore hammergun that an elderly lady had tried to hand in to the police. The officer who received it — let us call him Jim — was…

One of the unseen hazards of working dogs in sugar beet is the sudden encountering of a hare. Beet is their favourite crop and they will rest in the fields during the day, venturing out of the cover to feed at night. They will also browse the leaves and crowns of the beet. However, their attacks on the growing beet are generally less concentrated than those of rabbits, while the woodmouse is arguably the most serious pest of the lot, digging up and eating the beet seeds before they germinate. Hares are currently doing well in west Suffolk, so the odds of encountering a hare are high for dogs competing in the championship. I remember being told by an experienced trialler that all handlers hate hares, as they have a…

Taking measuring to tusk STALKING Q Can you settle an argument over how to measure Chinese water deer tusks? The book I have says that they are measured from where they emerge from the gum. But my stalking partner says this is wrong and that the whole length of the tusk is measured once it has been removed from the skull. A As far as the current CIC evaluation rules stand your friend is correct, but you can save some honour, as the old standard as laid out in Game Trophies of the World (the Red Book) did involve measuring from the point of eruption from the gum. There are two measurements taken: the length over the outside curve of each tooth, and the circumference of the tooth at the…

Plant: Alder Latin name: Alnus glutinosa Other names: Common alder, black alder, European alder How to spot it and where to find it: A member of the birch family, the alder is a fast-growing deciduous tree reaching about 25m with rounded, bright green leaves and often conspicuous catkins in winter. The leaves do not change colour, but darken and wither before being shed in late October or November. Alders are often found in narrow bands along watercourses, where they can form a dense thicket known as “alder carr”. There are 20 to 30 species in the Alnus genus but Alnus glutinosa is the only species native to the UK. Interesting facts: The twigs are sometimes sticky to the touch, hence the name glutinosa, which means “sticky” in Latin. Alder roots…

A small, rather fine goat, the golden Guernsey is instantly recognisable by its distinctive golden coat. The billy usually carries more hair than the female. Indigenous to Guernsey, the breed was largely established by Miriam Milbourne, who built up her own small herd of the goats on the island. It was nearly wiped out during World War II when most livestock was killed during the German occupation. The first successful imports to the UK didn’t take place until 1965. The great strength of the golden Guernsey is that it is the ideal backyard goat, able to thrive in a relatively confined space. It is a milking goat and though its yields are relatively modest (four or five pints a day), the butterfat level is high, ensuring the milk is ideal…

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