kitchrat

One of my beating "friends" diesn't use a magnet, a) because the older birds are magnet-wise (can be true) and b) because he feels it is unsporting to "take advantage of the naivety of young birds"!!!!. I say that a young bird eats as much of my farmer friends' crops as an older bird and eats just as well on my (or another's) dinner plate (may be more tender) and next year a young bird could produce 10 or a dozen more. (He's not a very close friend!!)

Yes, I've seen several groups on flattened maize cover or other game feeders but of course that's no use to us for another 5 weeks or so..... Whenever it's a bit colder they seem to be starting on rape but the weather never lasts and it's back to square 1. THINK COLD/SNOW!!

Where have they all gone then? I've just spent my Xmas morning looking in just that area, a few here and there and some sitting in trees but nothig to get excited about. Did shoot 10 on rape though but it started quiet and died away quickly, hence the search.... Seasons greetings all....

This ISN'T Facebook, about making fictitious "friends" you have never met, it's about shooting pigeons. THAT'S what we do......

And magpies, and jays, and crows and foxes....

Yes, I've seen them breeding this month.... Anyway, I have a farmer who has promised me £1,000.000 when I shoot the last UK pigeon, so keep up the good work!! I'll share it with you......

I have lots of perms in that area and towards Dunmow and it's one cold day and all looks good, then it warms up and they are all gone again. Are you one of these landowners that see a few dozen and call it 1000's??? Then, when I am setting up you fire off loads of rockets to spoil my day, even though we have arranged it all with you the day before?

Plus my 42= 14326

Good result for the adaptable shooter. I was luck enough to get 42 on late-drilled wheat....

I can beat that!! I had 42 on late-drilled wheat. No sign of them on rape except for that one cold morning we had a week or so ago. Can't blame the acorns 'cos there's not that many round here, unfortunately there don't seem to be many birds either. Roll on cold weather on the continent, I DO believe they come over then.

Sparrow hawks seem to have been taking a toll round here, you can see feathers all around plucking points. One tried to steal a decoy (real bird) from me yesterday too. And yes, I do see some dead biords about but agree with Actionpigeons, you can often see a hit bird fly half a mile then just drop dead. Not all can be retrieved.

One thing at a time Motty! Winter is when the farmers LIKE us, as opposed to endure us! Anyway, I'm having a hip replaced in the spring, so not looking forward to that!!

Great result! I think I could do similar round here on late-drilled wheat or beans but fog has stopped play for several days now. They are just sitting in the trees and nothing is building up on anything. Roll on winter!!

Saw some mating on Friday.....

This is a potential minefield!!! If beating ever gets classed as employment, it's game over. Minimum wage (£6+/hour), safety glasses, boots & hats, ear protection, hi-viz jackets, no barbed wire fences, all trip hazards in woods to be marked!!!!! I could go on and on about how H&S has ruined many a way of making a living. All because the big shoots try to get tax relief on beaters expenses......

I'm in Puckeridge and it's all change again. With Wednesday night being cold, they had started to look at rape on Thursday and were on late-drilled beans and wheat on my Essex perms too. However, by Saturday, it's warm again and they have pretty much disappeared again. The birds in my garden are cooing and yesterday I caught a pair ********! Where has winter gone? Did you see any????

Freewheeled my truck into a gateway of a rape field yesterday. A dozen birds took off but another dozen stayed. With the bins (they were only 25 yds away) I could watch them pulling bits off the rape leaves and guzzling them down. That corner of the field also had that, lighter colour suggesting it had been attacked. So they are starting on rape....

Plus my 30 = 14136

Who REALLY knows?? And how did they find out??

They're starting to show up a bit in the Herts/Essex border area at last. I did manage 30 on late-drilled wheat on Tuesday. Their crops had some wheat, some regrown flax from the next farm and some acorns. However, I must say that this "bumper crop" of acorns is not so bumper over here. Sure there are plenty but not megga-loads. There are few beech trees so I can't say about that. Ivy berries and sloes won't help, but I'm hoping that colder weather in Scandinavia will send birds over and we'll get a decent year on rape after all. In fact, with much rape being so well developed, the fields that are behind could become more of a draw and make it less difficult. (I nearly put easier there, silly me, winter rape is never easy!) Keep up the reports Guys!!! Kitchrat

Fully agree JDog. The best thing about the programme was that in Scotland you can use lead shot over farmland, thereby you have a good chance of making a claen kill. I recently went on a commercial evening duck flight, some of the other "Guns" would shoot at any duck that went near them, even if they were 60 yards up. Whilst they had "great sport" and had perhaps 50 shots or more, they only downed about a dozen duck, mainly with just a broken wing. What they did do was send the duck higher and away, so I only had about 6 decent shots and killed 4 duck cleanly. So, doing what we saw in TV is the only way I'm going to shoot wildfowl in the future, unless all Guns are my friends and I can trust them to shoot sensibly. PS I hope you get well soon. PPS No pigeons in Essex, having to go beating instead, just to get out and in the sport. Kitchrat

I know you all love my theories but we get groups round here acting just as you decribe JDog. They don't seem to have any objective in mind, just flying about for the sake of it. If you manage to get one down, it's always a young bird. I suggest they are "teenagers" who have just got the keys to their 1st car and are out joyriding. They seem to relish windy days and swirl about almost like starlings at dusk.

Went to a farm yesterday which has a good number of woodies around and about but not concentrated on any field or crop. However, they had drilled wheat on Saturday...... The bins showed a good flock of birds (100-150) on the drilling but when I got nearer I could see that they were 95% stock doves. Never seen more than a couple or three at a time before. Anyone else ever seen a big flock? However, as I watched, the flock of doves getting up and going down like a whore's draws (as they do) were slowly pulling the woodies in. Whithin an hour it was, maybe a 50/50 flock, then split into doves one way, woodies the other. I'm thinking Thursday could be my day, as long as the doves keep out of the way. I hate having to do a really close identification before shooting, especially if they are swirling about on a windy day.

Snows, speckled or Canadas. It's only legal to use the sound systems on snows. There are too many of them and they are destroying their own habitat up north. There is even an "Environmental" shooting season in the spring now!!

Just to entertain you guys a bit more, I'm in Canada right now, trying to shoot geese on the praries. Same game, bigger scale - bigger birds, bigger flocks (10,000's), bigger fields (1 mile x half mile minimum) and more fields for them to go to - hundreds of square miles. The commercial "outfitters", who guide hunters for cash, use literally hundreds of decoys, rotaries, flappers etc and a loudspeaker system - geese are very vocal. (I only have a dozen shell decoys!) When you do get them to decoy they are so easy to shoot it's no sport, they just hang in the air, trying to stop and pull away, you almost have time to reload if it's a big bunch. Still, a great experience. I'm back for pigeons on rape in 2 weeks, assuming they are not on the acorns you worry me with. No moose to worry about - see attached file- sorry I can't get it in the text.... Kanada Kitchrat Oh I did get it in the text!!