M ROBSON

The easiest and quickest way to age Greylags is to look at their beak. Young birds have a black tip to the egg tooth and the beak is more a yellowish colour. Old birds have a clear creamy egg tooth and the beak turns a darker shade of orange. This is true regardless of sex and wether they are migratory or resident. Here's 3 young birds for your reference, 2006_1024Image0032 by mj robson, on Flickr Old Grey on the right, 2007_0130Image0028 by mj robson, on Flickr Cheers, Mark.

When trying to do the "neck break swing" some people have the wrong technique and it will go wrong, resulting in the head coming off. I kill hundreds of birds this way each year, working as a pigeon guide, I see people doing it wrong on a regular basis. I can pick a bird up off the ground by it's head with my thumb, trigger finger and index finger, within 2 seconds it's dead and I haven't pulled any heads off in a very long time. You have to hold the bird by the skull, thus allowing the skin around it's neck to twist freely with the body. The nect will break and the head stays on. The mistake most folk make is they put the birds head in their hand and screw the neck with their fingers restricting the skin and therefore bursting it, when the neck breaks the head comes away. As far as I am concerned the quicker the dispatch the better, nobody can kill a pigeon with pliers, priest or a bite quicker than I can by picking it up and giving it a twist. They have to pick the bird up, hold it still and get it in a position to do their desired method, by that time my bird's dead!!

If the wind changes the flightlines can move slightly, even more so if the wind is strong. We've been getting a lot of east and south east winds this year and it has had an effect on the flightlines and also where in the field the birds are feeding. Mark.

One of my old Danish clients brought one with him last week, I was very impressed. It packs away into a bag and doesn't weigh much, he carried it as hand luggage on the plane.

Fly blown birds are just eggs laid onto the feathers. The incubation period of a fly egg is 24hrs at ambient temperatures, once you lower the temp below 5 degrees they go dormant. The eggs can be plucked off with the feathers and thrown in the bin. Believe me there are plenty of other bugs living in birds feathers other than fly eggs!! Nobody worries about them, maybe because you can't see them? I put my birds straight into a chiller set at 3 degrees as soon as I come in at night. The game dealer picks them up in a refridgerated van and stores them at his facility in a chiller. If fly blown birds were such a problem game dealers simply wouldn't deal in any summer shot pigeons, every bird has the potential to be fly blown in just a few minutes. Mark.

Good going PC, I bet your freezer is bursting!

Sorry to hear you had a bad time Mark, everyone can have bad times but to shoot over the same ground that was shot the day before and to fire less than 25 shots in 3 days is unforgivable in my book, it's August, there should be plenty of fields to shoot. I'd pack in if I had to do this for a living! Greener, I heard all about it. When "Hiring" a shotgun to a client the guide must be an RFD, I am, for the sole reason to hire guns to my clients. Also, if you hire a shotgun and you come from overseas you must also get a police visitors permit to be left alone in the field. I believe many guides break the law this way.

Great shooting, well done!

I was in Munich about 15 years ago just after the Oktoberfest had finished, it was great, really busy and they had lots of special offers on. Must have been getting rid of all their excess stock.

I make a good few venison sausages, there's no reason why you couldn't replace this with Pigeon breast. Just add a good bit of belly pork to add some fat to the mix. I like the bushwear mixes. http://bushwear.com/nostyles.php?ProductID=345021&ClassID=140

I was feeding 2 bags a day to 800 birds so it looks like your about right.

Poults should not die from starvation if you've got growers pellets out for them. The wet conditions brings bacteria out in force, Coccidiosis for one.

I bumped my car a few years back looking at Pigeons out of the passenger window!

Thanks PC, hope your barrels are hot too.

Thanks guys, Going by the numbers I've been seeing this week it should be a good summer. ""How on earth do you chill and freeze 800 plus birds?"" IMAG0026 by mj robson, on Flickr We've got a 6'x8' chiller and our game dealer comes to collect 3 times a week during our busy periods. Cheers, Mark.

This week see's the start of my summer pigeon decoying session, I'm 6 days a week now till September. Our Winter Barley is a week or two behind normal this year due to the lack of sunshine. The birds are on it in some areas but not in others, prefering the greens instead. We've shot them on Clover, Turnips, Kale, Chickweed and Winter Barley this week and accounted for 896 Woodies. Here's a nice bag off clover. IMG_0500 by mj robson, on Flickr Should be good when this heatwave comes along!!!! Cheers, Mark.

If your in Fife I can sort it out for you. Cheers, Mark 07872959592

Nice buck for your first!

I've went through about 10k of these so far, very good cartridges, nice and fast. I'd slightly favour the plastic wads over the felt though. Mark.

Marttiini Silver Carbinox for gralloching in the field and Skin work, best little knife I've owned. Mora for touching bone, legs, heads....etc.

Great fish, well done.

Young birds appear in every bag we shoot now to varying degrees. Even after the 2 bad winters we had we were shooting young birds after weeks of sub zero temperatures and deep snow. January 2010. Young woodie in the snow. by mj robson, on Flickr January 2011. Young birds after 5 weeks of cold! by mj robson, on Flickr

We've had 3 or 4 that have been half and half but this is the only full white one we've had. IMAG0062 by mj robson, on Flickr

I saw a pure white woodie in the same area from October last year right trough to March, saw it about 6 times. Shot some nice bags in that area but it didn't show up on those days!

Nomad or Sportchief