Bog Myrtle & Peat

I hope that I am a sportsman. Many cruel people have done nasty things to animals in the history of country sports, but I always like to think that when I kill, I do so quickly and humanely. There is no pleasure in shooting if the quarry is not instantly killed, and I learned from an early age that if you cannot be reasonably sure of killing straight-off, you had probably better lower the gun. Equally, if your target is at a manifest disadvantage, it is good practice to leave it for another day when you can meet again on a more even footing.

I have been quietly dreading dealing with a crow’s nest beside the old cottage for the past few weeks, purely because destroying eggs and chicks is not happy or glamorous work. I am too sentimental when it comes to this sort of thing, and if I was dealing with any other species of bird, I would postpone it until fledged chicks emerged to scatter and let me off the hook. However, knowing what damage they will do to game birds and their eggs, I absolutely cannot allow crows to exist with black grouse nesting nearby.

I have fired dozens of .243 rounds at crows since I began this project and only connected a handful of times, but trapping adult birds or picking them off at long range involves a calculated process of outwitting and besting that is far more acceptable to me than simply destroying their eggs and offspring. As I walked up to the nest this afternoon with my shotgun over my arm, I half hoped that I could just shoot the hen where she sat and destroy the eggs when they fell, but like everything else in this project, it did go according to plan.

As I raised the shotgun, she dropped out the back of the nest, keeping the tree between us so that I couldn’t fire. By the time that I had a clear aim, she was fifty yards out and turning sharply. Both cartridges missed her and I was left cursing in the road. Firing another two into her nest brought down a shower of twigs and debris, but no evidence of eggs. I climbed up into the tree to dislodge the remains and brought down a shower of clogged sheep wool, rotten bones and moss. Sure enough, three yellow crow chicks lay dead on the grass. They had hatched today, which should mean that she has now expended so much energy incubating them that she won’t lay again this year.

It was a sordid job, but one that had to be done. If any progress is going to be made at all on this project, crows have to be smashed. It’s one subject I just can’t afford to be sentimental on.