Less than twenty four hours after abandoning the Chayne as a hopeless cause because of the weather, the hillsides have totally emptied themselves of snow. My first reaction on looking out of my bedroom window this morning over the green fields was that I shouldn’t have sprung my traps. Any significant change in the weather Continue reading

The Chayne had its first proper dusting of snow last night, and what a world of secrets the white blanket has revealed. Heading up to the farm this morning, I flushed more than half a dozen snipe from the roadsides. They fluttered away from the car, then crash landed into thicker cover a few yards Continue reading

It was a fine morning for a walk around the Chayne. I arrived at 4:45am when the sky was blazing pink but the heather still glowered in shade. The blackcock was nowhere to be seen, and his familiar lekking ground seemed oddly deserted without him. He hasn’t been seen for the last few days, so Continue reading

It has been a few months since Richard and I last visited the Chayne to lamp it. Having seen the tiny fox cub crossing the road on the way back from Orkney last month, I had a vague idea of how far along the breeding has come this year, but nothing prepared me for what Continue reading

The new call bird hasn’t been long in working his magic. The hardest part of operating a number of larsen traps is catching the first bird, and many people find that as soon as they get a good caller from somewhere else, they are suddenly overwhelmed with successes. Sure enough, less than twelve hours after Continue reading

Knowing where the black grouse are nesting gives me the opportunity to focus my management efforts on the right area. I have sown oats in an adjacent garden and am now preparing another little patch on the hillside above the farm where I have seen the blackcock strutting around over the past few weeks. Much Continue reading

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 Continue reading

The more I learn about crows, the more I am convinced that, when the bomb drops, they will be the only survivors. It is amazing how clever they are, and setting out  to destroy them on the Chayne increasingly feels like a lost cause. It is almost as if they have a sixth sense for Continue reading

Much is made in gamekeeping literature about the damage caused by stoats and weasels. Weasels are so small that they are only really a problem around extremely young grouse chicks, but stoats are more than capable of wreaking serious damage on groundnesting bird populations, and learning how to tackle these slippery customers is now a Continue reading

Having found the fox earth and planned a possible way of destroying it, I thought that I had time on my side. It turns out that I was wrong. Two new born lambs have gone missing over the past twenty four hours and this is a situation that cannot continue unchecked. The field from which Continue reading