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Send in the Scots Pines
I mentioned in a previous post that I would not plant scots pine trees on the Chayne until I had the time and the patience to work with them. They just look like ordinary pine trees until they become mature and they grow so slowly that, even if I planted them tomorrow, I would never… Continue reading
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Beagles Passing Through
The Chayne is a hopeless spot for hunting. Surrounded on three sides by forestry, any likely looking fox immediately high tails it to the nearest cover, easily shaking off the hounds in the dense cover of the trees. The Dumfries and Stewartry gunpack has tried and failed to draw the land on several occasions. In… Continue reading
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Unexpected Guests
When I heard the first honk, I was sure that my ears were playing tricks on me. Standing on the banks of a small, well fed pond a few miles west of the Chayne, we had been flighting wild duck for two hours. It was the last night of the inland season, and the full… Continue reading
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The Nitty Gritty
Grouse don’t have teeth. It would halve their romantic appeal if they did. Imagine the heathery uplands filled with grinning birds, smiling and winking like body builders on Muscle Beach. It would be a grotesque spectacle, and every day I am grateful that all birds have an alternative method of ‘chewing’. Like many moorland birds,… Continue reading
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Silver birch: the good stuff
I have been reading my book on grouse. It is divided into four chapters – red grouse, ptarmigan, black grouse and capercaillie, but although I have an A-level in biology, I’m finding it rather heavy going. Graphs and tables can only keep my attention for so long, but I have picked up all sorts of… Continue reading
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Wood work
Finding bilberry on the Chayne was a great boost. When I started work on the farm, I was under the impression that nothing had survived forty years of semi-intensive grazing by the local sheep population, but on closer inspection, little gems of bio diversity still held out. Because of the stock proof fencing around the… Continue reading
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New Year woodcock on the Chayne
There was snow on the Chayne for three weeks. The first dump was soft and powdery, but then it froze and melted alternately with added dashes of hail, sleet and rain which made the entire hill into a frozen desert. The full moon was coming in and we were determined to try the woodcock while… Continue reading
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The discovery of black grouse
The tenant who currently works the Chayne remembers seeing fifty black grouse in a hay field behind the farm buildings. That was thirty years ago. Ten years have passed since he last saw one. Black grouse have been on a massive decline in Britain since the mid nineteen sixties, when upgraded agricultural techniques destroyed their… Continue reading
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Crows and my part in their downfall
Until I really gave it some thought, I couldn’t truly pinpoint why I hate crows. It is a hatred that seems to permeate every corner of my existence, and working out the specifics was a hard task. Carrion crows truly are some of the foulest and most poisionously vicious animals in the world. I love… Continue reading
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Little Meg
It was time I had a big rifle. Over the past sixteen years, I have owned two valueless rimfire contraptions; a rusty BSA .22 with an unpredictable safety catch and an exceptionally long barreled Brno. Those two guns killed thousands of rabbits, hundreds of crows and precisely two foxes, but they were immediately overshadowed by… 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 