The past week has been dominated by stoats. Not only did I manage to catch the marauder in my mother’s hen run, but I also spotted a pure ermine yesterday while pacing out the dimensions of a new fence which is due to go up in the next few weeks. For a moment, I mistook Continue reading

Having declared war on the insurgent rat population on the Chayne, I found fresh new evidence of the rats in my garden shortly before bed last night. What appeared to be a rabbit was sitting in the black grouse enclosure – on closer inpection, it was a cracking great big rat feeding on grower pellets Continue reading

There has been a major influx of rats on the Chayne over the past forty-eight hours. Not that those pink fingered demons have come from anywhere in particular – they’ve probably been on the farm all summer and now that food is getting scarce they are becoming more and more conspicuous. I trapped one in Continue reading

You cut the peat and you stack it so that it dries. A fox comes along and covers your peat stacks in shit. As if I needed another excuse to kill foxes on the Chayne, I need look no further than the string of grey hairy sausages that has been laid over the top of Continue reading

Since posting yesterday about walked up fox shooting, I’ve had a few comments and emails about the idea of getting a gun pack up onto the hill for a day’s fox shooting. Rather than respond to them all individually, I thought I’d write a seperate post on the subject. The idea of a gun pack Continue reading

Having explained my new strategy for walked up fox shooting yesterday, I have some pleasure in reporting that it works like a treat. I can’t believe that I only got my first dog last autumn. Scoop is totally indispensible, and if she continues in this rich form of fox finding, I won’t mind if she Continue reading

When I started to deal with foxes on the Chayne, I came up against a series of brick walls. The hill is a particularly awkward spot to keep on top of predators, and the fact that I’ve killed so few over the past three or four years says as much about the nature of the Continue reading

Over the past few weeks, the fox cubs have been growing. They’re also getting more confident, foraging further and further away from safety. I had a thrilling encounter with a gang of fox cubs on Saturday night, squeaking them in as they gambolled through the long grass just after midnight. There’s something quintessentially summery about Continue reading

Worth mentioning that my insanely frustrating game of cat and mouse with the local fox cubs continues. They appear frequently enough for me to be at constant red alert, but infrequently enough for me to have lost my concentration when they do appear. Despite the fact that I am always carrying a shotgun at the Continue reading

After four consecutive days of rain, it was nice to get the chance to head up around the hill for a leisurely walk this afternoon. There was nothing in my traps, and as I came off the inbye fields and stepped into the car, something caught my eye on the road by the shepherd’s cottage. Continue reading