lakeside1000

After some time stuck in the house I needed to get out and check the newly cut rape on the marsh, most of it was still stubble and some areas had quite a few birds moving around, but the main concentration of birds was on a small field next to the stubble that has been ploughed and harrowed, it was covered in a mix of crows and pigeons, I watched for some time to establish any flight lines but it was just a general movement across the field without any particular hot spot, so I chose a place in the long grass with the wind at my back and set out 10 dead pigeons , 2 on the magnet, and 4 flocked plastic crows. There were dozens of feral pigeons moving around in large groups, I don't normally waste cartridges on them but with a bag full , and not having been out for a while I needed the practice , so decided to bag a few when they presented over the decoys, Rooks and Jackdaws were coming in small groups and I soon started to get the numbers up, wood pigeons were few and far between but there were just enough to keep me keen, the first 4 on the ground were feral but then a couple of woodies and 3 crows came very quickly, from then on it was a good steady stream of birds , most turning across the decoys and presenting perfectly, thankfully my aim was good and I was kept busy running out to tidy up birds that had dropped either on their backs or with wings sticking up like warning flags. The day was overcast from 12 noon up to around 3.30 but then the clouds cleared and a very welcome bit of warm sunshine brightened up the late afternoon, there was a fairly light breeze from directly behind me for most of the afternoon but it did move around to my right side for the last couple of hours, but not enough for me to worry about moving the decoys as the birds kept coming regardless. High points of the session were 3 woodies with one shot, then 2 rooks with a single shot and finally 3 jackdaws which had landed in a straight line and again one shot took all three out in one go, at least the extras made up for some horrendously bad misses on some of the easiest birds but that is something I have learned to accept now I am getting on a bit and my eye sight and reactions are definitely on the decline . It was around 6.00 when I decided to clear up, still good light and a few birds still moving around but I had enjoyed a good session and had not eaten all day, just managing on my usual flask of sweet coffee. it took almost an hour to pick up all the birds and pack the car but the final tally was 25 feral pigeons picked with around 5 lost in the undergrowth, 16 woodies with everyone accounted for, 11 rooks 9 jackdaws and to my surprise a hooded crow, only the second I have ever shot in all my years of pest control. 61 picked with just 5 lost but definitely down, so a decent 66 bird day . Photo's show most but I did pick a few after I cleared up and had a long walk to find them.

My son does investment guidance in San Francisco and never stops talking about the developing Hydrogen power market, a lot of big money in the states is being diverted from electric car development into Hydrogen power, Having had holiday chalets here in the UK for several years please be careful about any investment into Caravans, Chalets etc, ground rents on these parks is going through the roof, owners cashing in on travel restriction due to covid, my chalets went from £800 per year up to £1500 per year and are now above £2500 heading towards £3000 , on top of that you would need very good insurance cover, council tax and general maintenance. rent income varies on each site or location but here on the east coast private renters are asking just £300 to £400 per week peak rates and these are only for around 8 weeks , the rest of the time its scratching around for customers with adverts on the internet and holiday magazines costing more and more every year. A complete waste of time and money. If I had enough cash, I would buy cheap property, fix it up myself and rent it out, tenant pays council tax and rents are on the rise as well, always a good return if you have the money and skills. I have dabbled in the stock market twice in my 73 years and lost a considerable sum each time, just my personal experience and never again. Good luck with whatever you choose, but do your research.

I would say greengage but its easier to tell once the fruit is fully ripe, so depends on the eventual colour of the fruit,

I totally get the point MM but how I look at it, which would I rather do, pack up early to go and sit watching Coronation street or Emmerdale and listen to the wife tell me about her day, or stay longer in the peace and quiet even if I only get one or two more, no contest. to be honest I think she prefers me staying out until the light goes !!!👍

Nice vid, well done some good shooting , my only note would be lets see more of the dog doing retrieves and some clean up footage, I don't have a dog and have to pick up every 4 or 5 birds as many end up on their backs and will put off incoming birds but otherwise very nice to see someone getting some good sport,👍

Great job, well done, looking forward to some stubble action here in Norfolk soon, combines are all set to go, just waiting for the crop to dry after all the rain last week, won't be long now.👍

After my first visit to the freshly cut barley last Tuesday, I had been disappointed by the small number of birds finding it, but not to be deterred I decided to try the same place again, after setting up in the shadows of a large thorn hedge, I put out 8 dead birds and 6 full bodied decoys with two of the dead birds on flappers, I placed 4 flock crow decoys about 20 yards further out but still just in range. I started getting interest straight away with dozens of crows coming in for a look, within the first 30 minutes I had 7 crows and 2 pigeons on the ground, so I set them all up as decoys and brought in the plastics, from then on it was just a steady trickle all afternoon, I had set up at 11.00 and some time later had checked my watch, 12.30 wow with over 15 on the ground I thought I was doing really well, 30ish minutes later I poured a coffee and checked my watch, strange still 12.30, realising the day was not going ultra slowly but my watch had stopped I pulled out my phone, 2.45 dam I thought I was going to get a bumper day with so much time left but no chance, so now with a little more urgency I rearranged the decoys and persevered, crows kept coming but most noticeable was a much larger gathering of pigeons were moving around the field, decoying well at about 30 yards and making good speed over the decoys on the fresh breeze. My tally was mounting , not a red letter day but not too shabby, finishing at 6.00 I collected all I could find, lost a few in the wood behind me and up in the high thorn hedge , no chance of me trying to get them down , I hate thorn hedges as I always end up removing thorns hours later from my hands and arms. 15 crows, 1 magpie, 32 pigeons picked, so 48 plus 4 or 5 not retrievable, but even better was just 65 cartridges fired, with several double taps to drop some birds meant my 'miss' tally was very small, the day had been a real pick me up after quite a long spell of only getting small numbers, there were still a lot of pigeons settling in the stubble all over the field but I was expected home for a family gathering so I had to call it a day, now looking forward to the next outing on the stubble and with the combines out and the next few days forecast as sunny and dry I think there will be a lot of stubble to try later in the week. cant wait.👍😁

Sorry Enfield, have not been on here for a while, I have never had a bird of prey attack a decoy, but I have had buzzards try to take the odd bird that has dropped out at distance and I couldn't be bothered picking up until the end of the session. to be honest if anything finds one of my shot birds a tempting snack they are most welcome, so far I have lost birds, one to a fox, one to a buzzard and one to a stoat, although to be fair the stoat just ate a piece of the dead pigeon before running off, the fox found a bird that had fallen into a huge bramble bush right next to its entrance hole, and the buzzard was attracted by the bird flapping around on the ground about 100 yards from the hide, he made off with it despite my shouting at him, cheeky beggar,

I bought a 1/2 litre bottle of white UV paint from eBay, I repaint the white on the decoy necks and wing bars every few months with it and birds come in and land within inches of them, does not work as well as fresh dead birds but always a good fall back if dead ones are in short supply. I only use fresh dead as I believe the UV in the feathers fade once they have been dead for a few days, One thing to be aware of is, if there is any light reflection from the decoys that will cause them to veer away , I get the same reaction when the sun reflects off my glasses , If its a bright sunny day dead birds work far better, but if its cloudy and overcast the plastics work almost as well. As for the glasses unfortunately I cannot see with out them so I now find on sunny days wearing a wide brimmed hat and keeping my head down works ok,

Two possible answers, if the growth was soft and squidgy it may have been a Lipoma, these grow quickly and can be quite large but seldom fatal, unless the rabbit is hit by some fast moving foreign object like lead, The other is indeed a cancerous growth very similar to those found in dogs and cats, cancers are normally hard when squeezed and can be fatal, unless the rabbit in question is already lead, sorry I mean dead. Either way the animal is not suffering now, and you probably did the right thing in disposing of it. 👍😏

My wife had huge problem with ticks on her horses, she just covers the ticks in Vaseline ,it cuts off the air supply and suffocates them, they just drop off after a very short time , I was in hospital in France for a minor operation, I found a tick in my belly button, the nurse almost had a melt down and ended up rushing me down to a treatment room in the A & E, where a doctor , with 4 student doctors looking on, filled my belly button with surgical spirit then using tweezers carefully removed the now dead tick, they studied it under a microscope to ensure there were no parts missing (presumably still in my stomach) after which they declared me tick free, it was only later I discovered the huge dangers of contracting Lime's disease from a tick bite ,which can be fatal, so their efforts were much appreciated. Just one of the many blood sucking, flesh eating creatures on this planet , lovely jubbly.

I had a call Monday from the farm , pea fields being cut and would be ready Tuesday for some shooting, so I arrived early afternoon, quite a few birds already there but well spread out, with a mix of shells and full bodied decoys plus around a dozen old dead birds I set up and had a steady afternoon until the rain and high winds put a stop to the sport, picked just 20 but well worth the visit, hope to get back again before the stubble gets too old and dry,

Had a ride out to Lowestoft yesterday for a village garage sale's, the pea viner's were cutting in several fields along the way so there may be some pigeon action on the stubbles this week, fingers crossed 👍

+1 ,I have 2 , one is a gel pack battery the other normal lead acid, both from golf carts, via a local car boot sale, one was a fiver, the other I got the cart as well all in for a tenner, the cart I sold on eBay for £20, can't be bad, they are both still going strong after a lot of use and recharges, probably had them getting on 5 years now,

I have a pair of Hypa-flaps which I mount up on tall poles above the crop, as long as there is a good breeze, add in a couple of floaters and stick all my decoys up on extension poles to get them above the flattened crop which can still be a foot off the ground, I have two magnets but rarely use them now as I cannot carry them and two batteries as well as all the other gear. If there is no wind I have a flapper mounted on a 3 foot pole which will run all day on a small 7 amp battery, we have just started on the laid barley but its mainly crows , no sign yet of pigeons in any numbers.👍

You poor weak person, what example are you setting others, see it buy it, dear oh dear, this is exactly the reason my wife will not allow me anywhere near the local gun auctions, last time I just went to 'look' and came home with a brand new Webley & Scott 810, 3 shot semi in black resin stock, multi choke etc., paid £250 including commission, Me really happy-Wife not so much, there is another one in September but if she finds out she will lock me up for the day 😁⛔

I have the Hushpower sound moderator fitted to my Beretta 391, Ureka 2, it was threaded onto an extended 1/2 choke with enough wall thickness to take the extra threading, so it can be easily removed and the gun returned to standard chokes. I use it in areas near housing or main roads , it reduces the bang to a subsonic level and removes the need for ear defenders , but it is not silent and still has a fairly loud retort. Disadvantage for me is the added weight on the barrel end making fast manoeuvres a bit more clumsy, also the diameter of the modulator makes the top rib redundant as a sighting aid, and sighting becomes more instinctive , it took some getting used to but eventually my hit rate returned to normal percentages, The other thing to remember is not to use plastic wads, which get shredded as they pass through the moderator resulting in small fragments falling back down the barrel and jamming the the gun completely, something I found out to my cost as I had to manage a full strip and clean while sitting in the hide , watching birds land and leave from the decoy pattern. (very frustrating) So I think it was well worth it to access more shooting land but a slight disadvantage in other ways.

I had a call from the main farm on Tuesday, over 1000 crows in a large area of laid barley, there were a few pigeons among them but not enough to get excited about, I stayed for a couple of hours but could not get the crows to come in to decoys, managed only 8 when the rain came down , I called it a day and will be back as soon as it dries out a little. One real problem is access, normally not a problem, but the headlands have not been cut, the nettles and grass are up over the bonnet height on the 4x4, and walking was impossible. I could only get within 200 yards of the worst hit area, and nowhere near any good flight lines. The peas are still attracting a lot of pigeons with some clearings holding around 50 to 80 birds, access here is much better so I think I will stay on the peas for another week or so and hope the farm gets the headlands cut , if that happens there could be some interesting times to look forward to on these areas of barley, fingers crossed..

Well done JDog, the peas are making a small but regular addition to pigeon bags almost everywhere they are grown , we don't have the large numbers of birds here in Norfolk but plenty of peas for them to get into, My average is steadily rising over the last couple of weeks, bags now of around 12 to 15 , could be better but I never complain , any way it always means there are a few for next time. 👍

Cheers John 👍

Well done again, it seems to be the norm at the moment, Every time I go up to the pea fields I put 50 or so up but they don't come back, Friday I started at 3 pm with just a bunch of half shells in a bald corner under 3 big oaks, It was almost an hour before a few came back, but then they came in one's and two's until I gave up at 7.30 with 11 picked and 1 lost for 18 shots, pleased with a few of the harder shots but still a slow evening, Farm manager came to see me as I cleared away and seemed pleased, as the peas are now all in flower with a lot of small pods I need to switch to another crop as they dont like lead in the pea pods when processing, he mentioned some laid barley starting to get a few birds on so out tomorrow for a look, fingers crossed.👍

Do we know if they were legally here and are they covid free, Very welcome and a sight to see, It always amazes me how something that looks so frail can travel thousands of mile over all terrains and oceans and arrive safe and well, My garden is always full of life and it gives me great joy to feed and watch them, even though many of them are Woodpigeons , Rooks and Jackdaws. none of them do any damage in the garden and all are very welcome. (as long as they stay out of my strawberries) My wife spotted a small brown bird with black freckles yesterday ,not a normal visitor, possibly a Bunting but I didn't see it so was not able to identify, but we get so many varieties , my favourite are the small bunches of Goldfinch . One I do miss which was my all time favourite was the male Bullfinch, I have not seen one since the 70's or earlier when I lived in Wiltshire. Many thanks for the heads up John, quite a sight. 😁👍

Two campsites near my house , whenever they are empty of campers, are full of pigeons, the grass is kept very short and the ground is soft and sandy, the pigeons spend hours just wandering around picking up small seeds and greens, sadly they wont let me on for a bit of sport, ah well !!😂

Wow, you certainly are an amazing marksman and what a super old dog, keep up the good work and videos, most enjoyable 😄👍

We are not talking about that, they came to test the pole just after the roof was finished and were not impressed, he said he would report it but nothing came of it, if they kick off I will tell them to get their pole off my land.