Tuesday 9 October 2007

Another Day They Can't Take From us

I almost started with " what a Glorious sight", I realised of course that that would be really stretching it.

From L to R we have Teddy, Les, Mike, Alastair, Haystack the Keeper, Captain of Shoot and Steve, noticeable absentees Myself taking the pics and Andrew who was at the back of the Land rover doing I know not what, I had thought he had raced off to bag himself a good position for the ducks.

Other absentees, Ozzie get well soon, Silage who is back at college, John hard at work, Conor at school & Ollie in Saudi they will we hope all join us soon, and jolly good it will be to see them.

The day was mild, a shame as we had had some nice cold mornings leading up to the shoot, but to the ducks, we had an unexpected disturbance that put up the 250 plus duck before we were in position with the dogs. What an awesome sight, each and every duck flew well and high. We were to say the least surprised just how quickly they got up to shootable height, especially first time out in previous seasons they have started quite low and throughout the season got higher quicker, not this lot. As always we limited the amount of duck to three per person or when Captain of shoot feels enough and blows the whistle for the end of the drive. We will, at a couple of shoots flight in the ducks as we have at least 70 birds from previous seasons, it also makes things a bit more interesting.

The next couple of drives, due to the very mild weather, produced a couple of birds a piece though the dogs, Tim (lab) Hector (GSP) Ben & Rosie (Springers) worked well, it was also the first time all the dogs had worked together, that in itself is always worth watching. If this little lot could not find a bird they were not in there.

To the old barn for lunch, the banter dear reader is not for gentle ears.

After lunch it was a walk and a half for Andrew and myself, all the way down to the dingly dell amongst the pixie houses, as you can see from the picture an ideal spot for pixies and high birds, Andrew is getting ready. This is part of a much bigger drive taking in the snipe field (see map).

The picture is a bit deceiving as the time you get to shoot is no time at all, but any bird you drop you feel is good shot, as the foliage drops from the trees pegs 4 & 5 will be much sort after.

Again our last two drives in the cover crop produced little today, given a few frosty mornings we will see change, but for this little merry band that is what it is all about dear reader, not the size of the bag (27 today), but the variety, duck, partridge, pheasant, snipe and rabbit, it is the variety of the weather and of nature itself, we know we will have good days we know we will have not so good days, because with the company we keep and the little bit of the countryside we have, we cannot have a bad day.

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