scolopax

I think I have 14 years to catch up on, not that you can pay 14 years NI arrears, I think it is six years? Scary amount of money to pay out in a lump sum.

Toast? 148 of his own MP’s vote against him

Blooming fishermen wanting everything killing just so there buzzers do not get tripped. most commercial fisheries are mysteriously devoid of water birds. Many arrive, few leave.

very good price

Heard a cuckoo today, but up on the edge of the moorlands, cannot recall the last I saw/ heard here in the arable lowlands. They seem almost to be a bird of heath and moor now. three weeks ago I saw the black browed albatross that has been gracing Bempton Cliffs. Certainly an impressive bird.

BASC x 2, BDS, GWCT and as of yesterday, Countryside Alliance.

Sounds like many a job on the oil rigs To attract true quality MP’s should be one £250K plus expenses and other benefits. Their salary now is a pittance in comparison to many other top professions.

Very expensive yes but they will last a lifetime, i think the big brands have extremely long warranties. I bought a second hand pair of Swarovski binoculars from a postcard pinned inside a birdwatching hide twenty years ago. If I need any replacement parts (mainly eye pieces) I just email and they arrive free through the post within a day or two.

I saw this price quoted in an off topic thread. At first it seems a crazy amount, but then i think of the expense required to produce a shootable surplus of wild Greys? Gamekeeper(s) wages, housing, vehicles, insurances, misc costs, game strips / brood rearing cover etc etc. A fair chunk of money to spend with no guarantee to get any return, for some seasons there would be no shooting at all but still all the expense, for after all the habitat improvement and pest control the little birds are at the mercy of the weather in June. I know a large estate in the south of England had a mission to bring back the Greys like they had historically, and they succeeded but not without effort, a large keepering team and a lot of agricultural ground taken out of production. I would imagine a very similar model to grouse shooting, except instead of recouping costs with season bags of many 100's if not 1000's of brace of grouse I would expect any wild Grey partridge shoot would barely shoot a fraction of that. A days bag? 30 -50 brace maybe on an exceptional good breeding season ? maybe only do that a couple of times a season, certainly not multiple times a week like commercials. So I could see full well where £600 a brace can come from.

not even Farage ?

That’s a shock, way too young. Absolutely amazing cricketer. RIP.

Really don’t look at the USA.

BBC news coverage, pathetic, there was a special news feature yesterday about the war. It was 52 minutes into the program before they even touched on the current military situation! Before that it was all ‘human interest’, refugees at border crossings, footage of man carrying a dog onto a train, some politics. There used to be a time when a reporter would get to the front line, now they swan about railway stations in a flak jacket.

There used to be so many in parts of Scotland that they used to hold driven days, I remember reading an article in Shooting Times back in the 80’s about one such day. I think they shot about 40+ mixed capercaillie and blackgrouse. What I would pay to go on such a day!

Another hard season on my local estuary, six blanks (although I did miss a couple of chances) until December when I was tipped off about a small flight of geese using one end and it produced the goods with a Grey and a Pink carried off from a lunchtime flight. After that I had more success than blanks and finished with a handful of geese and ducks for the season. Annual wildfowling holiday north of the border was good again but I was the unlucky one out of our group of four insomuch as I could not buy a shot, that is until the Thursday when I eventually shot at and got a goose, by that time the others all had four or five or more each lol.