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Looking Sharp
Just worth mentioning that the blackcock don’t seem to have moved away yet as they did last year in late September. My favourite cock bird was spotted this afternoon in one of his favourite spots on the cattle bucht where he can keep tabs on the hayfield and all the goings on therein. His tail… Continue reading
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A Welcome Return
With the onset of autumn, I can’t help looking forward to receiving visitors. I heard my first pink footed geese of the season a fortnight ago, and I’ve been scouring my home patch of Solway cost with binoculars for the past few days. Each year I get a couple of morning flights at the wigeon… Continue reading
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Barking up the Wrong Tree
The woodland surrounding the Chayne is managed commercially. Big subsidies and tax breaks were being offered a few decades ago to anyone who wanted to plant trees, and as a result, one of the most devastating changes in land use that Britain has ever seen began to permanently destroy thousands of acres of the nation’s… Continue reading
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Releasing Birds, Mk.2
As part of an ongoing experiment to see what happens to gamebirds on the Chayne and in an attempt to learn something more about gamekeeping, I’m now bracing for the arrival of thirty partridges. We won’t be shooting these birds, but it will be interesting to see how they get on in their pen, which… Continue reading
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What’s going on?
The last twenty four hours has been very unusual. Woken at half past one this morning by the sound of calling snipe, I looked out of my bedroom into the gloomy cloud cover. I was clearly not going to see anything, but over the next twenty minutes, four other snipe passed overhead, calling until they… Continue reading
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Coming Across Bruno Liljefors
Having spent the past few months painting black grouse to illustrate a book, the temptation has always been there to see how others have painted wildlife through the years and to take inspiration from other artists. The most famous British wildlife artist has to be Archibald Thorburn, whose paintings of gamebirds are some of the… Continue reading
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Farewell, Old Friend
After a great deal of humming and ha-ing, I’ve taken the dramatic step of trading in my rifle and getting a new one. At least, it’s dramatic as far as I’m concerned. The Ruger No.1 rsi in .243 has been the mainstay of my armoury for the past two years of fox control on the… Continue reading
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Being Proactive
While the last couple of years have been quite slow for my project on the hill, I feel like things are starting to pick up pace. I now understand what needs to be done to help black grouse and all ground nesting birds, and I’ve whittled down my various habitat management theories into a handful… Continue reading
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Owl Boxes
Barn owls have been really conspicuous this summer. There has hardly been an evening’s lamping in which a barn owl hasn’t played a part, and they pass though the beam of my lamping torch so often that I hardly even notice them anymore. The same could hardly be said until May, when to see a… Continue reading
About
“Shout on, Morgan. You’ll be nothing tomorrow”
Swn y galon fach yn torri, 1952
Also at: https://andtheyellowale.substack.com
Bog Myrtle & Peat 