Last day – 28th January 2012

It was one of those mornings that the travel alone would have been beneficial enough.   I had left the house following the ceremonial de-frosting of the land rover.  This involves pouring hot water over the lock and door seals to get in, running the engine, spraying de-icer on the inside of the windscreen and scraping off what I could before moving to the outside and scraping off the ice as you might on a normal car.  Once defrosted the journey along the valley was stunning.  The landscape was carpeted in frost, the sky was blue, and every now and again a patch of mist obscured everything.  As I headed for my last shoot of the season I could feel the annoyances of the week’s work fall away with every mile.

I had offered to beat as well as shoot and to do so had been sent ‘up the hill’.  Normally I am placed as either a walking or standing gun on the lower slopes of the hill, below the woods, so had never seen the landscape above.  Well, it was a bit of a revelation.  No one had mentioned the job of covering the moorland, pushing any stray birds back into the woods below.  I hadn’t even realised that there was any moorland above the wood.

Three of us set off to cover this ground, one with a springer and one with a Brittany.  This was the first Brittany that I have ever come across in the flesh and I find the breed intriguing.  Not a spaniel, but with similarities; not a pointer, but with similarities.  The dog ran well and obviously enjoyed himself, and in doing so put a few birds over the guns which can’t be bad at all.  I do wonder whether there is a role for one of mine up here next season.  We could definitely cover the ground well and, seeing as there are only ever a few birds up there, I can’t see it being anything other than positive.  I will think further on this.

Shooting is so much more than shooting.  Walking through countryside that is not normally publicly accessible is a privilege.  Quite often you come across gems – either landscape from a different angle, old buildings tucked into cwms, wildlife that you don’t expect.  Today it was the buildings that caught my eye.  There are plenty of medieval buildings dotted around this area and on days like this you can see how they are part of the landscape rather than incongruous bolt-ons, unlike some of the more recent results of planning decisions.  I would rather come across an acre of corrugated steel roof on the right building than one more Spanish hacienda in Wales.

So what of the shooting.  Well, we had a good few birds over us.  They were high and as ever, fast.  I had a few shots and had one hen bird.  Between us we did ok.  Plenty of woodcock about with, on one occasion, four flushing at one time, but none was shot.  Not a bad decision, if indeed any decision would have affected the outcome.

I came home and took the dogs out into the woods.  The air was sharp and we had a good walk into the dark of the evening.  I didn’t have a torch which was just as well as I might have missed the bright ceiling of stars.  As I got the dogs into the back of the land rover I could hear a fox shouting in the woods.  Quite an eery sound however used to it you may be.

A great day, in a wonderful place.  I am sometimes asked whether I would move to somewhere else.  Well, I don’t think so.