Bog Myrtle & Peat

After two days of serious graft, the pheasant release pen is starting to take shape. It’s always extremely satisfying  to work a chainsaw in a sitka plantation, because it gives you the pleasing feeling that you are carving yourself a space out of the trees from the inside. Thirty spruces have come down to open up the wood in a south facing direction, and thirty have been left standing to shield the spot from the bitter south westerly which rakes the moor from November to February without ever pausing to draw breath. As soon as I have cut this tip of this long thin wood off from the main length with a broad feed ride from one side to the other, the place will be almost ship shape.

Wire and pen netting is arriving tomorrow and I am currently involved in making a door to fit the raw timber frame (pictured above). Having begged, stolen, borrowed or bodged all of the materials going into this pen, it may well have a fairly idiosyncratic appearance, but I hope it will do the job. An electric fence (more details to follow) and a system of snares should keep the foxes back provided that the pheasants don’t manage to escape too soon, and while I am only putting a couple of dozen birds down this year, I can’t help thinking that the experience has already taught me a huge amount.

If the worst comes to the worst and a fox does get into the pen, I will at least have a focus for this year’s experimental feeding project which I intend to start in November. Feeding last winter made a huge impact to the birds and beasts, although I did run out of money for wheat by early January. This year, I have planned ahead and intend to see a tonne of wheat delivered in late August. That should run a small handful of feeders throughout the winter, giving everything a better chance of reaching  the spring in good breeding condition. I probably won’t get to shoot any of the birds I put down, and I may not even try to. This early in the project, working out what to do and how to do it comes before any sport.

As an aside, I heard last year that in extreme periods of cold weather, black grouse were seen around artificial feeding stations in Angus and the Grampians. It could even be that my programme of winter feeding could benefit the boys in blue.