Innholdsfortegnelse for 15-Dec-2021 i Shooting Times & Country

Farmers and gardeners have not traditionally been keen advocates of rabbit conservation; however, they are being asked to build ‘rabbit hotels’ to help declining populations. Rabbits became a serious agricultural pest in the UK when the warrens where they were kept were abandoned and the animals began to spread. The arrival of myxomatosis in the UK in the early 1950s brought about a crash in the rabbit population. A second catastrophic crash came with the arrival of rabbit haemorrhagic disease, which happened just as the animals approached herd immunity to myxomatosis. Among the areas affected by the population crash was the heathland of the Brecks on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. In the Brecks, grazing by rabbits was an important factor in creating habitats for insects such as the…

LEAD — A SOLUTION? A move to steel at the expense of lead will have the single most damaging impact on both clay and game shooting in my lifetime. At one stroke it will render redundant the UK’s finest lightweight game guns and significantly impact employment. The shooting organisations that joined and signed up to ban lead did so without sufficient consultation with their members, cartridge manufacturers and without positive testing trials to determine energy comparisons with lead at all ranges. The signatories capitulated without resistance, in effect letting down the shooting community without good reason. Five generations of my family have regularly eaten lead-shot game in season, I have total confidence in it and will continue to do so. The UK manufactures lead shot and has done for more…

It was a cold November morning, the sun hiding behind broken clouds and a soft breeze adding to the chill. We approached the first drive of the day, Shepherds Hole, set within the breathtaking beauty of the Meon Valley and a short drive away from Portsmouth Naval Base. Once the Guns were in place, we could hear the distant tap of sticks and the noise of the beaters. You could feel the anticipation of the Guns when gunshot was heard as one or two pheasants made an early appearance. The cover crop at the top of the hill was being blanked-in to the woodland that sank into the valley. I watched from behind the Guns as pheasants broke from the first flushing point. “A bird climbed to remarkable height and…

Nestling below the hill of Mill Buie, Knockdhu Farm sits at 1,100ft above sea level, allowing for breathtaking views across the glen. The vista alone would be enough to draw us here, but we have not climbed this high to enjoy the view; we are here to catch rabbits. Year after year, from September until March, Georgie Bourner and I have ferreted this farm’s sloping acres in an attempt to hold back the burrowing, long-eared tide. No crops are grown at this altitude, but even land grazed by blackface sheep can be destroyed by rabbits. Their urine burns the sparse grass and what rabbits don’t eat, they bury with soil scattered from their excavations. Within a few years, these troublesome bunnies can turn productive acres into a cratered wasteland. For…

SO THE BIG QUESTION IS: Chelsea tractor or capable off-road vehicle? The answer is both, really. Around town it is fun and capable, and likewise fun and capable off-road. I really enjoyed my week with the Defender 90 and wasn’t keen on giving it back. This 90 starts off at £53,930 on the road. Add in the optional extras of the metallic paint, leather seats, adjustable air suspension, towing pack — including the all-terrain progress control, Terrain Response 2 and a few more abbreviations — and it comes out at £59,560. It sounds like a lot and it is, but it’s worth every penny, I would say. It was a bit juicy on fuel economy and the boot is a bit disappointing space-wise, but, overall, I love it! Downsides considered,…

Will all of our ash trees die? WOODLAND Q The ash trees in our woods are beginning to die in big numbers and I am guessing ash dieback disease is the main cause. Is there any hope of survivors, or will we lose the lot? A Ash dieback is caused by a fungus from Asia, where closely related species to our own ash have sufficient resistance to live with the disease. We should probably expect that most of our ash trees will become infected and that a large proportion will die. However, there are trees with resistance and there is hope that some will survive. Fortunately, there is considerable diversity in the ash gene pool, so even if only a few trees make it, we can expect that they will…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD The Suffolk Community Barn Owl Project is one of the great conservation success stories of recent years. Founded in 2005, it is a collaboration between ornithologists, farmers, estate owners and keen amateurs. A combination of improving habitat, providing 2,000-plus nest boxes, monitoring and ringing has led to East Anglia now boasting the highest density of barn owls found anywhere in the UK. The barn owl is an ethereal bird. Its spectral form appearing silently over a hedgerow as it hunts has led to many of its nicknames to carry a sinister tone — ghost owl, for example. It is possible, by imitating a mouse’s squeal, to call in a hunting barn owl to obtain a closer view. This must be done with caution, however. ‘Deadly’ Darren…

A university farm where a shooting lease was controversially cancelled after a campaign by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) looks set to become part of a multimillion-pound housebuilding scheme. Hall Farm in Arborfield, Berkshire, hosts the University of Reading’s Centre for Dairy Research. It also sits in a prime development site in the Loddon Valley immediately to the south of Reading and to the west of Wokingham. The site is bounded to the north by the M4, giving good access to Slough and on into central London. The university has ‘welcomed’ a new development plan that would create a ‘garden village’ on the site. Shooting on the farm was leased to a local syndicate; however, a campaign by the LACS targeted the university, with misleading claims including that “large…

A row has broken out between experts regarding weasel numbers and whether a ban on trapping is necessary. A study looking at the distribution of a range of small mammals found that the number of survey squares that hosted weasels had declined from 50% in 1971 to 20% in 2016. The same study found declines in voles, shrews and stoats. The steep decline in weasel numbers was highlighted by Professor Fiona Matthews, who told The Times that she thought that a licence should be brought in to trap weasels and that licences should only be granted if there is an “overwhelming reason, like there’s another species of dire conservation concern that needs to be protected”. However, mammal expert Professor Robbie McDonald, whose PhD was in weasel and stoat ecology, was…

I read the article about the curlew (Finding our brightest bird, 1 December) with interest. It brought to mind one occasion many years ago as I waited at daybreak on a rocky foreshore, crouched behind a slab of rock beside a deep creek at low tide. As dawn broke curlew started to flight inshore, but en route one alighted on top of the very rock I was hiding behind. I very slowly raised my hand and managed to grasp both its legs firmly before it could take alarm. I only held it for a few seconds before allowing the astonished bird to fly off with the rest of the flock. So that one wasn’t paying attention to its surroundings as it landed. Curlew were then legal quarry, but I rarely…

Post-lockdown, I’ve had to fit in new stalking bookings that keep coming in as well getting all those clients out who had days deferred due to the pandemic. Needless to say, I’ve been madly playing catch-up. It is hardly surprising that people are desperate to get out with the rifle after what has been almost two years of confinement. The start of the hind and doe season is always busy anyway, particularly so during the first months of the roe doe season. But a diary as full as this presents me with a dilemma — some might argue it is a nice problem — but being fully engaged in guiding or training means that I can’t get out on my own. In some areas that I manage, due to the…

I am convinced that the most effective way of managing the non-herding deer species on a lowland estate is by group culling. As an individual stalker, I can get around the woods week on week, picking away at the numbers and, hopefully by the end of the winter, building a reasonable total. But a single stalker cannot be in two places at once. While he is having a blank morning sitting in his high seat, or stalking in vain for a deer on one side of the estate, he cannot be training his rifle on a couple of roe, or fallow strolling across a ride a quarter of a mile away. But place six Rifles in the best places on the estate simultaneously, morning and evening over a couple of…

I’ve fallen in love again. The telltale signs are there. Shoehorning his name into every conversation, however irrelevant or inappropriate it may be. A comment from a passer-by turns into yet another declaration of affection on my favourite subject. “Looks like rain today,” she says. “Yes,” I reply. “Tommie loves the rain. Have I told you about him? No? OK, where do I start?” He is kind, talented, tall, dark and handsome, so you can hardly blame me. At 16 hands high, Tommie, a bay thoroughbred gelding, arrived in our yard four months ago. I bought him from a friend who had in turn bought him straight off the track. She had retrained him well and within a short time he had developed his repertoire to include hunting, team chasing…

If you truly love your child or spaniel, or indeed both, it is your duty to take them beating, at the very least, twice a season. For it is only in the beating line that both kids and cockers can really do what they want to do. In the case of children, stick waving, shouting, chocolate eating, tree climbing and scrub scrambling are not only allowed, but positively encouraged. Spaniels get to partake in full-blooded, nose to ground, tail-feather snatching and hunting — and hunting is to spaniels what half-time pies are to football fans. I love my son and my cocker, Mabel, so I did my duty by them last Saturday. Charlie sat next to me in the passenger seat of my creaking and dilapidated truck. Mabel, incarcerated in…

It must be a couple of years since it happened, but the whole thing is as clear as if it were yesterday. My uncle, who was well into his seventies, rang to ask if I could spare a day early in the season in order to join him at shooting a few pheasants. He felt time was catching up with him and, what with rheumatism in his shoulders adding to the difficulty of getting the gun up, let alone getting on to the quarry, needed a little help from the younger generation. The idea was to shoot a fair few birds so that he could give away all the ‘duty’ braces. He would then feel entitled to spend the rest of the season pottering about being content should he manage…

This year, as usual, my brother-in-law invited me to a driven day. This always presents me with a quandary, because I am unable to return the favour in a like-for-like manner. So whenever the annual invitation from Stewart lands, I have to give the matter careful consideration. I have been known to battle with my conscience for as long as 10 seconds before accepting. This year, we were at Hopetoun, an estate in rolling countryside a few miles west of Edinburgh. The thing about Hopetoun is that it is a very relaxed yet efficient shoot, run by a bright young keeper. There is no rushing about; there are plenty of birds, plenty of time, plenty of chat. Everything seems to work with minimal fuss. The beaters and pickers-up manoeuvre as…

A huge area of German farmland will be taken out of production in an effort to stem ground-nesting bird declines and particularly to help save the country’s rapidly vanishing grey partridge population. German farmers will now be required to leave 4% of their farm’s area as ‘set-aside’ — land that is not farmed — if they want to claim subsidies under the EU common agricultural policy. It is hoped that this will boost nesting and feeding sites for ground-nesting birds. Any mowing of set-aside land will now also be delayed until 15 August instead of the current date of 15 June. Grey partridges have been in catastrophic decline in Germany, with a 90% population loss in the past 30 years. A study that took place in Lower Saxony in 2016…

Gamekeepers came to the rescue again as Storm Arwen wreaked havoc across eastern and north-east Scotland. The storm, which brought gusts of more than 100mph, felled trees, tore down power lines, ripped the roofs off buildings and claimed three lives. In Northumberland, which was hit by exceptionally strong gales, entire woods were flattened, and Shooting Times is aware of at least one shoot that had all its woodland destroyed by Arwen’s fury. The east coast of Scotland was hardest hit. In Grampian — where a highly unusual red weather warning was issued — gamekeepers risked their lives to protect others. As the storm was building towards its peak, keepers from Edinglassie and Lynebain scrambled to clear fallen trees from the A920 between Huntly and Dufftown. The heroic team managed to…

Wild Justice suffers further court defeat Wild Justice has been declined leave to appeal the dismissal of its judicial review of the muirburn regulations in England (News, 3 November). After its latest courtroom defeat, the group took on top environmental law barrister Estelle Dehon to argue that it should be allowed to appeal. However, the campaigners found themselves chalking up yet another failure when Mrs Justice Lang told them their case was inarguable. Bird flu warning for home cooks The APHA (Animal and Plant Health Agency) has issued advice for anyone preparing game for the table at home as the bird flu outbreak continues to worsen. Avian influenza is generally considered to be a low risk to human health. However, there have been cases in individuals who had handled infected…

I was recently trudging across the Yorkshire moors with a few mates, guns in hand and the dogs working back and forth in front of us. In the distance, Ingleborough peeked out from behind some low-hanging cloud, its snowy top quietly blending into the grey sky above. Millie, my spaniel, stuck her nose into a rough area in the field, some rushes protruding from the boggy grass, and a cock pheasant took off, flying away to my right. I fired and connected, folding the pheasant into a thicker area of rushes next to an old stone wall. We were straight on to the place where it fell and I was sure Millie would retrieve it in a matter of seconds. But after a minute, there was still nothing to show.…

By the middle of the 18th century, a rapidly expanding urban population, the growth of our colonies and an interminable period of warfare led to increased demands for raw materials, particularly grain and wool. Much traditional pasture came under the plough and flockmasters pushed ever further north in search of new grazings, reclaiming vast areas of heath and heather moorland, using the oldest form of agriculture — burning on a rotational basis to promote regrowth. That this benefited the relatively scarce grouse population went largely unnoticed, except by resident landowners and the marvellously eccentric sportsman, Colonel Thomas Thornton. In 1782, the Colonel set forth to investigate and his delightful Sporting Tour through the Northern Parts of England and Great Part of the Highlands of Scotland was the first publication to…

An early start is often the hunter’s investment in success. As I hurtle west, it is a necessity borne out of the two-and-a-half-hour journey to today’s hunting grounds — epic bogs. If you grew up in rural Ireland, then there’s a fair chance that you’ve spent your fair share of time ‘down the bog’. The bog has a special place in the heart of every culchie. I have memories from the late 1990s of enviously eyeing a friend’s T-shirt that boldly pronounced him as the ‘Nad Bog-Snorkelling Champion’. To understand my envy, you would need to know that Nead an Iolair (Nest of the Eagle) is a tiny village buried in the mountains of north Cork that mainly consists of a pub, a crossroads, a bog and an unrivalled reputation…

NOT MANY OF US give a second thought to retrieving, as it’s simply what gundogs do. However, it’s not quite as natural as it may seem — though a dog that undertakes a retrieve is performing instinctively, if behaving unnaturally. For a predator to pick up warm prey, resist the opportunity to eat it, then carry it some distance to give it to another species, is hardly natural. Dogs are, of course, descended from wolves and an adult wolf will carry prey back to its cubs. By a combination of selective breeding and training, we have managed to modify this behaviour so they bring game — the equivalent of prey — to us. To complicate things, we also expect our dogs to retrieve gently with a soft mouth and not…

The Land Rover Defender was a mainstay of rural and military life for quite some time. After a four-year gap waiting for the updated version, I was more than keen to see if the all-new Defender 90 lived up to its legendary predecessor. We’re taking a look at the Defender 90 P300 X-Dynamic SE, which is the sportier, higher-spec version. Chelsea tractor or capable country wagon? Let’s find out. Big and bold, the new 90 has retained most of its recognisable silhouette, with some added modern curves and styling. It’s nice to see the classic chequer plating and I rather like the Tasman metallic blue paintwork, which is set off nicely with grey-gloss 20in wheels. “The slippery wood track was no match for the Defender... and it dealt with the…

HARRISON & HUSSEY This is a plain, rather minimalist paper and ink label by the short-lived Harrison & Hussey. This firm was founded by two menfromothergunmakingcompanies. Henry Hugh Hussey was the son of the controversial H J Hussey, once of Lang & Hussey, while Claude Edward Harrison was manager of Cogswell & Harrison in London. The company was formed in 1919 and traded from 41 Albemarle Street in London’s West End. Mr Hussey left after two years to form Ogden, Smith & Hussey, though the firm appears to have continued trading as Harrison & Hussey until 1930. Its Worcester Park Shooting Ground was the location for the first Sporting Clay Target Shooting competition of Great Britain in 1925.…