I have been asked to do a blog about my gamekeeping and stalking activities. I thought hard over this because sometimes I get carried away with the shooting part of it and I don't want to upset anyone. I know there are people who disagree with shooting and I’m not dissing them in any way – ‘each to their own’ I say.
Having said that I'm proud and privileged of what I do. I also know there are people that do shoot here on BCUK. Those may (or may not) be interested and I suppose it's also a good idea to try to educate non-shooters about our sport generally because a lot of the bad feeling is generated through misunderstanding of what actually goes on. It’s not the blood bath the press would like you to believe.
So to set the scene, I’ve been shooting for a very long time and started my working life as a keeper. I then decided I could earn enough money to allow me to shoot at weekends by being an accountant during the week. So that’s what I did. Then I saw a part time job advertised a couple of years ago and went for it. I should have known, who ever heard of a part time gamekeeper ! :arg:
Anyway, I keeper on a 500 acre farm not too far from where I live. There’s a mixture of woodland, thick hedges and fields. A third of the land is subject to flooding because the River Thames marks our boundary on one side. Another third is a large hill which sounds good from a shooting point of view but in fact is too gentle a slope for really high birds as the guns have to stand half way up it. The remaining land is normal farming land.
The farmer is fairly conservation minded and has planted lots of trees since he bought the place about 20 years ago. There are 2 or 3 old woods (beech, oak) and another 5 or 6 much younger ones (broadleaf and coniferous) and also a couple of cover crop strips, mainly maize and kale.
Although the farmer does like his trees it’s not always the case that pheasants will. A wood needs to be warm if it is to hold wildlife. Generally the warmer the wood the more wildlife lives in it, both in terms of density and diversity. This is because they generally have good food sources as well as cover for hiding and warm places to sleep.
Some of our woods are in the ‘cold’ category. That is to say the trees have got too big and are blocking out a lot of light from reaching the ground, creating barren areas. These can be very difficult for the beaters to walk through because the trees are at human level, but if you lie down you can see 100 meters ahead. This makes it cold for the pheasants who are, of course, ground dwelling birds. The birds then vote with thier feet. :aargh4:
So that’s the back ground out of the way, no doubt I’ll keep adding crucial bits of info as I remember them so apologies if something doesn’t make sense. Just ask. Keepering wise it's getting busy now. We've ordered 500 birds, arriving this week. They will be 6-8 weeks old so they're ready to go out to wood in the release pen. That’s basically a half way house (between the complete safety of the rearing field and the dangerous wild wood) where the birds can get ‘street wise’ (or should that be ‘wood wise’?) There they learn things like roosting in the trees rather than jugging on the ground where there are predators, and how to cope with rain. The pen itself is a large open topped enclosure made from chicken wire 6-8 feet high. The birds can fly in and out as they wish and there are also ‘pop holes’ set in the wire. These are one way passages designed to allow birds back into the pen once out but not allow them out in the first place (they have to fly over the top). They also are designed to stop foxes squeezing through.
We like to keep them there for 2-3 months, gradually they'll wander off themselves, hopefully staying on the farm and coming back to feed. By then we will have filled the out lying feeder bins, ours are 45 gallon oil drums with feeding slots cut in the bottom filled with wheat. The theory is the birds will be well spread out by October (the start of the pheasant-shooting season) and old enough to push over the guns. Of course some birds wander off the farm never to be seen again, some die of natural causes or get eaten by, well, anything that takes a fancy to them really and some are used by passing cars as target practice.
Conversely our shoot receives birds from others in the area so hopefully we won’t be too down on the deal.
A lot of my time is spent controlling predators. Foxes are pheasant enemy number 1. I have a lot of respect for foxes, I think they're great, brilliant in fact, at what they do. But that's the problem, they're too good at killing. I'm charged with looking after the pheasants which means keeping the fox population under control
I don’t use traps or snares on the farm, I can’t guarantee to check them every day so I can’t use them by law. That means I have to use a gun. I don’t worry too much about the pigeon and rabbit population, the farmer has other people to sort those out
All keepers rely on a good relationship with the farmer and other people who are on the ground, they’re another pair of eyes and ears. Take last week for example, I had a phone call from one of the syndicate guns.
“Mark, you know you said you hadn’t seen any foxes around this year. Well…”
Damm !
So the next evening I followed his directions and stalked up the hill, it took 2 hours to go about 300 yards. I knew I was doing all right because the background birdsong didn’t change as I past by. I saw 3 Roe does and a hare, all passing within 15 feet of me. When I got to the top it was getting dark – the perfect ambush time.
As soon as I’d eased myself into the hedge a fox popped out into the ride. My rifle has a moderator on it so the bang wasn’t too noisy. I waited there a while longer, foxes often investigate strange noises, and then another one showed himself. That’s two. The gun only saw two but he said they were young, that must mean a family and anyway, one of mine was old so there’s still some more work to be done. Often when the den is disturbed like that the family move to another site. I hope the rest have decided discretion is the better part of valor and moved well away.
I waited until it was too dark to see but nothing else showed. Not that I really expected it to, foxes may be inquisitive but they’re not stupid!
We had a working party yesterday (Sunday). A WP is where the guns should turn up and do some of the jobs to help out. Things like mending the wire on the pen when a branch falls on it :shock: (as has happened twice this year) or cutting rides. That sort of thing.
Only one gun turned up yesterday out of a possibility of nine. Granted only about 4 or 5 actually make a habit of turning up for the WP’s, the others were on holiday somewhere.
Anyway we got the pen ready, connected the electric fence, put old fluorescent tubes around the pen (connected to the electric fence), put up raptor deterrents (obviously we can’t kill anything with a hooked beak but we can ask them to look elsewhere for dinner
) and placed the feeders and drinkers on pallets around the pen.
I think we’re ready for the birds now, fingers crossed. Releasing the birds is one of the most stressful times for a keeper because no matter how hard you planned there’s always some birds that don’t read the script and end up doing exactly what you don’t want ! :***:
Stalking wise I went for a quick walk round before the WP. I only saw two Muntjac deer, the first was a yearling buck still in velvet which I shot. When I was gralloching it another kept barking at me, I had a fleeting glimpse of it – a doe 100 yards away– and then it was gone.
It was a nice walk with the dog, it’s the first time I’ve taken him stalking, he’s really a shotgun gundog but I’m going to try to train him partly as a deer dog as well.
This started out as a short intro post setting the scene but it’s not turned out like that.
Thanks for ‘listening’ and sorry for rabbiting on.
I’ll let you know how the release of the birds goes later in the week.
Cheers
Mark
Having said that I'm proud and privileged of what I do. I also know there are people that do shoot here on BCUK. Those may (or may not) be interested and I suppose it's also a good idea to try to educate non-shooters about our sport generally because a lot of the bad feeling is generated through misunderstanding of what actually goes on. It’s not the blood bath the press would like you to believe.
So to set the scene, I’ve been shooting for a very long time and started my working life as a keeper. I then decided I could earn enough money to allow me to shoot at weekends by being an accountant during the week. So that’s what I did. Then I saw a part time job advertised a couple of years ago and went for it. I should have known, who ever heard of a part time gamekeeper ! :arg:
Anyway, I keeper on a 500 acre farm not too far from where I live. There’s a mixture of woodland, thick hedges and fields. A third of the land is subject to flooding because the River Thames marks our boundary on one side. Another third is a large hill which sounds good from a shooting point of view but in fact is too gentle a slope for really high birds as the guns have to stand half way up it. The remaining land is normal farming land.
The farmer is fairly conservation minded and has planted lots of trees since he bought the place about 20 years ago. There are 2 or 3 old woods (beech, oak) and another 5 or 6 much younger ones (broadleaf and coniferous) and also a couple of cover crop strips, mainly maize and kale.
Although the farmer does like his trees it’s not always the case that pheasants will. A wood needs to be warm if it is to hold wildlife. Generally the warmer the wood the more wildlife lives in it, both in terms of density and diversity. This is because they generally have good food sources as well as cover for hiding and warm places to sleep.
Some of our woods are in the ‘cold’ category. That is to say the trees have got too big and are blocking out a lot of light from reaching the ground, creating barren areas. These can be very difficult for the beaters to walk through because the trees are at human level, but if you lie down you can see 100 meters ahead. This makes it cold for the pheasants who are, of course, ground dwelling birds. The birds then vote with thier feet. :aargh4:
So that’s the back ground out of the way, no doubt I’ll keep adding crucial bits of info as I remember them so apologies if something doesn’t make sense. Just ask. Keepering wise it's getting busy now. We've ordered 500 birds, arriving this week. They will be 6-8 weeks old so they're ready to go out to wood in the release pen. That’s basically a half way house (between the complete safety of the rearing field and the dangerous wild wood) where the birds can get ‘street wise’ (or should that be ‘wood wise’?) There they learn things like roosting in the trees rather than jugging on the ground where there are predators, and how to cope with rain. The pen itself is a large open topped enclosure made from chicken wire 6-8 feet high. The birds can fly in and out as they wish and there are also ‘pop holes’ set in the wire. These are one way passages designed to allow birds back into the pen once out but not allow them out in the first place (they have to fly over the top). They also are designed to stop foxes squeezing through.
We like to keep them there for 2-3 months, gradually they'll wander off themselves, hopefully staying on the farm and coming back to feed. By then we will have filled the out lying feeder bins, ours are 45 gallon oil drums with feeding slots cut in the bottom filled with wheat. The theory is the birds will be well spread out by October (the start of the pheasant-shooting season) and old enough to push over the guns. Of course some birds wander off the farm never to be seen again, some die of natural causes or get eaten by, well, anything that takes a fancy to them really and some are used by passing cars as target practice.
Conversely our shoot receives birds from others in the area so hopefully we won’t be too down on the deal.
A lot of my time is spent controlling predators. Foxes are pheasant enemy number 1. I have a lot of respect for foxes, I think they're great, brilliant in fact, at what they do. But that's the problem, they're too good at killing. I'm charged with looking after the pheasants which means keeping the fox population under control
I don’t use traps or snares on the farm, I can’t guarantee to check them every day so I can’t use them by law. That means I have to use a gun. I don’t worry too much about the pigeon and rabbit population, the farmer has other people to sort those out
All keepers rely on a good relationship with the farmer and other people who are on the ground, they’re another pair of eyes and ears. Take last week for example, I had a phone call from one of the syndicate guns.
“Mark, you know you said you hadn’t seen any foxes around this year. Well…”
Damm !
So the next evening I followed his directions and stalked up the hill, it took 2 hours to go about 300 yards. I knew I was doing all right because the background birdsong didn’t change as I past by. I saw 3 Roe does and a hare, all passing within 15 feet of me. When I got to the top it was getting dark – the perfect ambush time.
As soon as I’d eased myself into the hedge a fox popped out into the ride. My rifle has a moderator on it so the bang wasn’t too noisy. I waited there a while longer, foxes often investigate strange noises, and then another one showed himself. That’s two. The gun only saw two but he said they were young, that must mean a family and anyway, one of mine was old so there’s still some more work to be done. Often when the den is disturbed like that the family move to another site. I hope the rest have decided discretion is the better part of valor and moved well away.
I waited until it was too dark to see but nothing else showed. Not that I really expected it to, foxes may be inquisitive but they’re not stupid!
We had a working party yesterday (Sunday). A WP is where the guns should turn up and do some of the jobs to help out. Things like mending the wire on the pen when a branch falls on it :shock: (as has happened twice this year) or cutting rides. That sort of thing.
Only one gun turned up yesterday out of a possibility of nine. Granted only about 4 or 5 actually make a habit of turning up for the WP’s, the others were on holiday somewhere.
Anyway we got the pen ready, connected the electric fence, put old fluorescent tubes around the pen (connected to the electric fence), put up raptor deterrents (obviously we can’t kill anything with a hooked beak but we can ask them to look elsewhere for dinner
) and placed the feeders and drinkers on pallets around the pen.I think we’re ready for the birds now, fingers crossed. Releasing the birds is one of the most stressful times for a keeper because no matter how hard you planned there’s always some birds that don’t read the script and end up doing exactly what you don’t want ! :***:
Stalking wise I went for a quick walk round before the WP. I only saw two Muntjac deer, the first was a yearling buck still in velvet which I shot. When I was gralloching it another kept barking at me, I had a fleeting glimpse of it – a doe 100 yards away– and then it was gone.
It was a nice walk with the dog, it’s the first time I’ve taken him stalking, he’s really a shotgun gundog but I’m going to try to train him partly as a deer dog as well.
This started out as a short intro post setting the scene but it’s not turned out like that.
Thanks for ‘listening’ and sorry for rabbiting on.
I’ll let you know how the release of the birds goes later in the week.
Cheers
Mark
