sittytree

Cat has it spot on. A bumper crop of beech masts and acorns means the rape won't get bothered much this winter. I shot my last decent bag in mid September and don't expect another good day until well into the new year! The last bumper crop of acorns was about ten years ago and the pigeons didn't start on the rape in any numbers until beginning of March! Everyone was saying there are no pigeons, but they were just in the woods and not on the rape.

Lovely shots.

Mostly winter barley and wheat up here too, but there is a fair bit of spring barley gets put in. The first farms sow out at the beginning of March and the last ones, (the wetter fields on the higher ground) get drilled usually in the first two weeks of May, so gives a fairly long spring to go at them. Hardly any Oilseed Rape up here though, probably only a dozen or so fields over the whole of my permissions....and thats covering a big area!

Earlier in the day...

The last of the barley to get drilled on my permissions went in last week and having watched it a couple of times noticed a few birds starting to show interest. So had a go the other day, with a good strong wind blowing and birds flighting in to a line of Oaks at the top of the field I set up, wind at my back and in shot of the trees. The pigeons came in small bunches all afternoon, if not into the decoys then up into the tree beside me. Picked up at 4:30pm with 107 in the bag, a good day to finish the drillings.

Very true. A fine beautiful bird, I love to watch them, love to feed them in the garden and love to outwit them in the field and shoot them, a truly sporting quarry that deserve alot of respect.

Amazing shot of the wren, those little fellas don't stay put for a second!

Glad you like it, means alot coming from your quality of photos GG!!

Another one coming in for the ivy berries.

Ha ha!... All royalties this way!

That was taken on one of the few sunny spells this afternoon between the rain showers!

Couldn't find enough birds to shoot with the gun, so had a walk with the camera instead!

They are loving these at the moment!

Don't mean to be a killjoy....but those are Stock Doves, which are actually protected and can not be shot at anytime! sorry.

I had a couple of goes at them. The first day I managed 53, there was very little wind so they weren't really co-operating too well, coming over high and choosing to settle in the woods at the bottom of the field, and of course once one lot landed all the others joined them, but it wasn't too bad. They didn't hang around long though, and a week later there was no where near as many and only got 35.