windmig

In my mind, "wildfowling" was supposed to be enough to find a wildfowling community and it is not the case. But it is true that if you add the word forum, it is easier to find you. The difference with France is that we are mainly shooting birds from private or semi-private places, especially at night. Therefore, no one is allowed to take your place. This is surely a reason why we share more our observations. I call semi-private a place where shooters are allowed to go at day when nobody's here. It is mainly on these sorts of places that I chase snipes and jacksnipes. But the birds you are shooting, are they local birds or migrating ones ? This may be also a reason why we share observations: the birds we are chasing are often away the day after we saw them...

You seem to be effectively secretive whereas in France, we share more spontaneously our observations !

Hi, my question may not be politically correct vis a vis pigeonwatch but considering that you are numerous and dynamic, why don't you create a wildfowling community in a place more adapted to our hobby ? It is quite hard to find you on the web...

Hevi-shots are so good that they are now forbidden in France ! I'm not sure that it's the real reason but it is the only one that appears to me. One could find them a couple of years ago but now it is finished.

Very interesting discussion ! I would be pleased to complete with an echo of the situation in France as we are allowed to shoot every day. But 10 years ago, there was an attempt from 'green' politicals to limit the days in the week where shooting and hunting was allowed. A law was voted and Wednesday was chosen. The reaction of French hunters was very strong and we struggled to get the Wednesday back. The main reason was that it was not fair for all people that could not afford to go on other days. In France, hunters mainly think that 'hunting' is more in danger than 'ducks'. It may seem a bit strange to write that but I really think that it is true. Therefore, it is important to fight against restrictions that could end to a dramatic reduction of the number of hunters. If we become a sort of minority, we won't be able to survive as hunters in our societies. This is what happened for instance in Belgium or in the Netherlands were hunters have almost disappeared because of days and game restrictions. Wednesday is now back, but the debate isn't as some people claimed recently that Sundays should be now no-shooting days in France. But of course, Great Britain is not France and both countries have very different traditions !

Very nice place, dog and pictures.

1h40 in order to reach the marshes where I run after snipes. 1h30 to reach the place where I hunt ducks at night. It's hard to leave near Paris...

Be good and tender with her ! A girlfriend writing poems on wildfowling is pretty rare and your are very lucky that she understands as well your passion.

Hi Pole Star, excuse us for this French parenthesis! It was difficult for me to resist asking some questions in French to Xavier about the type of hunting he is practicing in the North of England. We certainly could have done that in English ! At the end of our conversation, I was pointing him out that I had the pleasure to discover a first observation from Northern Ireland on WindMig. http://windmig.com/h...PB-reserve.html Now considering your question, at this period of the year, it is certainly impossible that birds banned in France fly up north to Orkney & Shetland as all birds are globally heading to the south. But it is certainly possible that at the end of winter, some leave Spain or France in order to come back to Orkney & Shetland. This could be the case for teals or wigeons for instance, maybe also for some geese species. As matter of fact, I don't even know if Orkney & Shetland is more a place where birds arrive in winter from Iceland or Norway or a place that birds leave in winter to fly to the South of England, France and Spain. It may also be both of them. This is one of the questions maybe WindMig could help us to answer... PS: I heard recently about the sad story of Betty Corrigall. If you walk in front of her grave, please give her a French greeting from me !

Merci pour ces infos Xavier. En espérant avoir le plaisir de retrouver qq obs de ta part sur WindMig. Au passage, j'en profite pour te dire qu'un premier membre UK vient de poster une observation d'Irlande du Nord : http://windmig.com/hunting,migration,otherducks,01-09-2012,2343,Lough-Foyle-RSPB-reserve.html A+

Merci pour ces explications. Je ne pensais pas que c'était aussi facile de trouver son bonheur de chasse en Angleterre. Quand tu dis que la chasse de nuit est autorisée, ça consiste en quoi par rapport à nos huttes ? Sinon, je me rends compte qu'il manque des espèces sur mon site qu'on ne chasse qu'au UK. Je pense notamment à l'oie à bec court et la Canada (même si cette dernière est autorisée depuis l'année dernière). Tu en vois et d'autres ?

Hello Xavier, thank you for your answer !!! Etonnant et sympathique de tomber sur un sauvaginier français vivant dans le nord de l'Angleterre ! J'ai regardé le Wirral sur la carte : le coin a l'air chouette. On sent qu'il y a de l'eau dans le secteur... Je cherche depuis quelques temps à trouver des gens potentiellement intéressés par mon projet et j'avoue que je désespérais un peu... Mais ton message encourageant me donne du baume au coeur. Merci beaucoup. Comment se retrouve-t-on chasseur de gibier d'eau au UK ? Et à quoi ressemble ta chasse ? Au plaisir de te lire.

Hi, my name is Michael. I am 44, married with 4 children and a dog (épagneul Breton in French – I think that it is Brittany dog in English). I am French. I live and work near Paris. My favourite hunt is to run after snipes and woodcocks in Normandy (north-west of France) with my dog. My greatest pleasure is when my dog succeeds in pointing a snipe as I consider these birds as one of the most difficult to hunt. I also hunt ducks at night as we are allowed to do it in France. I own a little hut where we spend our nights with my friends, waiting for wild ducks to shortly stop on our pond, attracted by the domestic ones we breed. As I am very interested in bird’s migration, I decided to create a web site in order to follow their migration through Europe. It was a huge job as I did everything on my own but it is now operational. The address of the website is: http://windmig.com/english.html WindMig is currently used by many French hunters. I have recently translated the website in order to propose four new languages: English, Spanish, Italian and German. Two Spanish hunters joined us recently and I have nice contacts with some Italian guys that are about to participate. The aim of WindMig is to provide a European view of the migration. It would be great if some English hunters would take the time to share with us their own bird observations. In order to complete this quick picture of WindMig, the website also provides weather forecasts maps and detailed weather information for any point in Europe. I thought that it would be useful for hunters in order to help them anticipating bird’s movements. I am sorry to start my presentation on this great forum with some advertising but I feel that WindMig is a good and new idea. It would be a great success to give an British touch to this website and I don’t know how to reach Great Britain hunters otherwise from France. Thanks a lot for reading me and don't hesitate to ask me any questions concerning this project. Michael.