It has been a few days since I caught my first pregnant rabbit of the season, and catching another this morning effectively puts an end to the ferreting season. Working warrens where young rabbits are nesting makes for difficult work, and if nothing else, it is a waste of perfectly good rabbits which could be Continue reading

It’s been a cracking winter with the ferrets. My records now tell me that they have put just over seventy rabbits in my hands, and have contributed to the downfall of a score of others who were too inaccessible to find. Both have come on leaps and bounds in terms of their ability to deal Continue reading

It has been a fantastic week for geese. Huge numbers have been flying back and forth over the house, and when I got home last night with a full moon rising, I heard the distinctive call of pink foots from the farm over the road. It didn’t take long to throw on some jackets, fetch Continue reading

If anything, there are probably more pink footed geese around just now than there were last month. It’s impossible to spend more than a few seconds outside without hearing that cheery cackle, and massive skeins over the house are now so common as to have lost some of their sparkle. Heading out to the fields Continue reading

The question of whether or not you can have too much firepower while goose shooting has been comprehensively answered. With the ban on goose lifted a few days ago, I headed out onto the neighbouring farmland this morning with Richard, a registered firearms dealer with a new acquisition. The single barreled bolt action ten bore Continue reading

I have always tried to take a photograph to accompany any text on this blog, but not being very sharp with a camera always means that I am fairly well incapable of taking any good wildlife snaps. Sometimes, though, I have real gems dropped right into my lap. Trying to decoy s0me of the pink Continue reading

When I got my ferrets in July, my main motivation was to use them bolt rabbits for shooting. As the autumn came on and I started to get interested in nets, the idea of shooting slipped away a little bit and I began to concentrate on catching rabbits the traditional way. Realising that it had Continue reading

With the sun still nothing more than a distant glimmer behind the Solway Firth, I headed off this morning for a date with the local wigeon. My alarm was set for 5:55am, and as I sat up in bed, I was delighted to see frost curling up against the window. There is no real advantage Continue reading

I had such a fine time watching the goshawk flying after blue hares last week that when I was invited back on a nicer day, I was thrilled to bits. Although the forecast promised a fair mixture of cloud and sunshine up in the hills, it was obvious that rain was going to prevail once Continue reading

I need to get into the mindset whereby I look at the Chayne as somewhere to offer sport. Having spent the last year working to develop habitat for wild game birds on the farm, I have put the prospect of actually pulling the trigger to the back of my mind. On the spur of the Continue reading