Innholdsfortegnelse for 18-Aug-2021 i Shooting Times & Country

This morning, I bought some sausages. Not a great adventure, admittedly, but I enjoyed it hugely. I’m in London at the moment and the local Italian butcher’s shop is staffed by a girl who seems to know an awful lot about truffle hunting. As I walked home, it struck me how much pleasure there should be in shopping. From buying a gun to a punnet of strawberries, it ought to be a very human experience. Online retail opportunities in the sporting arena are many. I could order a full shooting suit this afternoon and have it delivered by tomorrow lunchtime. It’s impressive but I’m not sure it compares with the joys of popping into a proper country outfitter. Over the years, I’ve seen a number of gunshops close their doors…

After a busy few days, I enjoyed some quiet time in the afternoon reading my daddy’s copy of Shooting Times. As I am nearly three years old, I’m looking forward to going out with my daddy, my working cocker spaniel, Lottie, and labrador Lexi to help pick up some birds. My daddy spends a lot of time reading your magazine and trying to get some tips on how to shoot in preparation for the season ahead. He has told me he is going to buy me my first gun soon. Ethan Lovesey, by email…

EARLY LEARNING FOR THE YOUNG FERRETS The young ferrets are now in the hands of their new owners. Many of these are first-timers, others experienced hands, but they were all excited when the kits arrived. One of the many life skills that ferreting has to offer is that of respect and responsibility. Nothing illustrates this more than the responsibility we hold towards our ferrets. Once I have left the nursing jill to raise her litter, I leave them all well alone for the first three weeks. I don’t take them out, nor move them when cleaning the hutch. I have in the past and it has had a detrimental effect on the jill — I have lost valuable litters. At About three-and-a-half weeks I do have a look, but only…

Liam Bell is chairman of the NGO and headkeeper on a family-owned estate in South Shropshire The combines are rolling, fields are opening up at an everincreasing rate, and we are starting to see broods of both pheasants and partridges. It is a little early to draw conclusions about how the wild birds have done this year — we have still got a fair bit of wheat and a huge acreage of winter beans to get in — but at the moment things are looking all right. Or, at least, better than they did last year, when we only had a few broods of grey partridges get away, and smaller-than-hoped-for coveys of redlegs and broods of pheasants. Another upside to the corn coming off is that it makes it easier…

Latin name: Lychnis flos-cuculi Common name: Ragged robin Other names: Crow flower, crow soap, cuckoo, cuckoo gilliflower, Indian pink, meadow pink, wild William How to spot it and where to find it: Look at the flowers on this herb and you will see how it gets its name — those pretty, star-shaped blooms do look rather bedraggled. There are five petals on each, deeply divided into four narrow lobes. They range from white to pale pink to almost purple, complemented by blue-green, lance-shaped leaves on a rather hairy stem. Ragged robin is a plant of damp habitats and is found in wet grassland, rush pasture, fens, ditches and damp woodland margins. Interesting facts: Lychnis, the genus name, comes from the Greek noun lychnos, meaning lamp; it refers to the use of a…

Sue, a treasure on the beating line The Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust (GWT) has named Sue Stringer its 2021 Game Bird of the Year. Gamekeeper’s wife Sue is an NHS nurse whose spare time is spent supporting husband Steve, a full-time gamekeeper on an estate in Wales. Steve describes Sue as his eyes and ears on what’s happening at her end of the beating line on a shoot day. As well as making food for the beaters and Guns, she is also their on-shoot medic. Active throughout the year, Sue lends a hand with everything from looking after birds, dogging-in with her team of dogs to sitting out with her rifle for foxes. Plan your route to Walk for Wildlife You can help the GWCT protect the nation’s wildlife by taking…

The internet is an incredible tool. However, one thing spawned by the World Wide Web leaves me feeling decidedly bilious, that being the ‘inspirational quote’ meme. One such tooth-itching aberration appeared on my Facebook page last week: “Sometimes bad things have to happen before good things can.” I swiftly scrolled on. However, while undertaking research for an article on illegal egg collecting (see p30), those saccharine words came back to mind. I had spoken with Douglas Russell, the senior curator of birds’ eggs and nests at the Natural History Museum (NHM), Tring. We talked about the huge collection Douglas is responsible for – more than 200,000 clutches – and how the array was amassed. Most of the Tring collection was built by amateur naturalists, who were working at a time…

With the home-bred ducks busy with their test flights, now is the moment to start feeding your flightpond. With luck, some of the families will have parents that visited you last season, so will be only too happy to investigate now. Wouldn’t it be a pity if they found the cupboard was bare? Be careful, however; food left uneaten can go sour quickly, especially in warm weather. This can make it unappetising, as well as polluting your pond. What you choose to feed has a big influence here and I prefer barley as the staple. I imagine that, as it starts to ferment, it goes kind of beery and the ducks seem to like that. It’s also the case that enough is enough. For most ponds, half a bucket scattered…

18 / 20 Build quality Solidly constructed to stand up to the elements and proper field use 18 / 20 Brightness Good glass and excellent light transmission make for great viewing 17 / 20 Features A wide choice of retic les and positive, resettable turrets with ballistic stop 18 / 20 Ease of use Operation is very intuitive despite this scope’s sophisticated features 17 / 20 Value The Conquest V4 is not a cheap telescopic sight, but is worth what it costs 88 / 100 Overall score This versatile sight delivers admirable performance – a winner from Zeiss…

Chris Dalton is a professional stalker and a regular presenter on The Shooting Show It has been a frustrating few weeks, largely due to the continuing debacle over COVID-19 rules, specifically travel and quarantine. The issue has been exacerbated by Scotland’s devolved government continually refusing to adopt a UK-wide policy and by posturing from Europe, who clearly will never forgive the UK for daring to leave. I rather foolishly thought that the plans and amended bookings — along with the deferments that I have been painstakingly and meticulously reorganising over the past 18 months — would be good to go. Wrong. With countries going in and out of the traffic-light travel regulations, I feel more like a Thompsons travel rep than a stalking outfitter. “It was a pleasure to watch…

There is an arresting hypothesis that the post-glacial forests of oak, elm, lime and pine were preceded by a wall-to-wall lowland carpet of sea buckthorn. As the larger trees took hold, the pioneering sea buckthorn was pushed to the edges and, eventually, only the eastern edge, where it earned its reputation as an east-coast seashore shrub. It is still common in its final redoubt, but has been reintroduced elsewhere for its talent in stabilising wandering sand dunes. It was regrettably overqualified for the job, soon pestilently claiming exclusive dominium wherever it was planted. More recently, it has been used by beneficent highway authorities as a roadside tree and it is there that you are most likely to encounter it. My favoured place is along a local bypass where there are…

SOME YEARS AGO, I had a discussion about breeding dogs with the owner of a well-known and successful field trial kennel. He said that it was far more financially rewarding for him to have top stud dogs rather than brood bitches. The stud fee for his dogs ranged from £500 to £750, ensuring a reliable income of thousands of pounds a year for relatively little work. Though he did remind me that qualifying a dog as a field trial champion, making it a sought-after stud dog, took a great deal of work. In contrast, breeding a litter of puppies required a considerable amount of time-consuming effort. A bitch would only have one litter a year but a good stud dog might be used 20 or 30 times. The economics of…

This is based on a recipe that has stayed with me over the years. I first made it in a sweaty basement in Notting Hill and was amazed by it. The combination of oranges, vinegar, herbs, olive oil, pine nuts and (at the time) poached capon was irresistible. I was transported instantly to Renaissance Lombardy. At the time, I had no idea where Lombardy was, but the effect of the dish – like so much really great cooking, was transformative. This version with pigeon — which, dare I say, is even better than the poached capon original — was born of creative block. Sometimes, you sit down to plan a photo shoot and a recipe session, but your mind decides you have other things to do. The pressure is on.…

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 DIGGORY HADOKE Vintage gun expert, firearms dealer, author and journalist BRUCE POTTS Shooting Times rifle reviewer and stalker MIKE SWAN Conservation expert and head of education for the GWCT AVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL NGO chairman, Shropshire gamekeeper and keen wildfowler GRAHAM DOWNING Shooting consultant and sporting author TONY BUCKWELL Veterinary surgeon with a special interest in gundogs TOM PAYNE Professional shooting instructor and avid pigeon shooter ELLENA SWIFT Award-winning gundog trainer and canine behaviour specialist TIM MADDAMS Former head chef at River Cottage who runs a shoot in Devon SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen…

MEDICAL Wet weather can cause foot problems for dogs and it is a good idea to check your dog’s feet regularly. Lifting their paws, spreading the pads and checking in between for discolouration or foreign objects can help head off a serious issue. FISHING Go big or go home. If you are chancing your arm for salmon on a river in spate, big flies and big lures are the way to go. While Stoats Tails and Blue Charms will get lost in the maelstrom, big Tobys and Flying Cs are much more likely to find a fish for you.…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Learning the easy way, thanks to ST As a lifelong reader of the Shooting Times I have much enjoyed your Vintage Times articles. Recently, I bid successfully for 60 copies of Shooting Times from the 1960s at a local auction house. I paid £42 for the lot, which seems excellent value even at today’s subscription price. The first copy I started to read was dated 25 November 1965, which was some three years after my own passion for shooting was started by my father encouraging me into the shooting field. Apart from the many evocative adverts from venerable companies such as William Powell, Cogswell & Harrison, Webley, AYA et al there were four articles that really captured my attention. The first was by J K Stanford…

August has yielded some truly wonderful heads. Eight medal-class roe heads have been measured. I always struggle singling out heads for a mention, but G Petit’s gold medal roe from Surrey caught my eye with its massive weight, and I simply can’t ignore M Ainsworth’s phenomenal North Yorkshire monster that made silver. We have also seen muntjac, Chinese water deer and sika measured this month, with D Robertson’s bronze medal sika catching my eye as an absolutely stunning example of the elusive species. New ground COVID-19 prevented me from running the measuring service at the Game Fair, but t he flipside of this is that I managed to get out on the ground thanks to a generous invitation down to Hampshire. The chance to stalk new ground is always exciting…

For years, friends of mine have owned standard poodles. I have always had to be careful when visiting them if accompanied by my own dogs, as there are invariably bowls of uneaten dog food left on the kitchen floor, an open invitation for my spaniels to help themselves. My friends have always maintained that poodles are superior to most other breeds and particularly greedy gundogs as, unlike the latter, they never consume their dinners as soon as the bowl hits the ground. Instead, they often take no more than a bite, leaving the rest for later, which might be the next day. For years, I thought (somewhat naively) that this might indeed be a standard poodle trait. Certainly, some breeds seem to be far less food-obsessed than gundogs. I’ve known…

THE METHOD Serves 2 as a lunch or 4 as a starter 1 Pan-fry the pigeon breasts. Season them well first and cook for roughly three minutes per side on a moderate heat, with a little coating of cooking oil. Once cooked to medium, put aside on a plate, allowing them to rest and cool a little. 2 Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan and set aside. 3 Finely slice the onion and prepare the oranges in the fashion described above. Combine with a dash of sherry vinegar and some thyme leaves. Season and add any resting juices from the pigeon. Cut the tomatoes in half. I have blanched them in boiling water for three seconds before putting in iced water and peeling off the skins. This…

HAMMOND BROS This paper and ink label was in a blue-baize-lined case lid by the maker Hammond Bros of Winchester and states ‘By Her Majesty’s Royal Letters Patent’. It sports a Royal Warrant and notes the address as ‘40, Jewry Street’. The business was founded by Isaac Hammond in 1828 and moved to Jewry Street in 1854. It did not become Hammond Bros until 1878. The brothers were the sons of the founder. The company continued to trade under this name after the 1931 takeover by Southampton gunmaker Patstone & Cox, but disappeared from Winchester in 1970.…

I have been forcibly rewilded. Or, at least, my back bedroom has. By bees. Thousands of ’em. And because there is no insecticide currently approved for use on bees, I have had to engage in a lengthy and convoluted process to reclaim my own home. In a sense, my experience of beemageddon illustrates the problems of rewilding an environment that is occupied by humans. How do you deal with an iconic wild species if it decides to take over your private property, conflicting with your own valid interests, when the authorities dissuade you from using lethal control? We were away in Cornwall when a friend, checking the house, discovered the huge swarm of honeybees in our back bedroom. The bees were clustered on a curtain in a pulsating mass the…