Sciurus

3 today in loan 2 traps. (One trap has caught 5 in 3 days in a neighbouring garden.) Total 1627

2 more trapped in neighbours garden and one shot Total 1618

Set a trap in a neighbours garden at noon today, caught two this afternoon . Total 1603

Thanks chaps- the sun had indeed got to me- I am enjoying a few days away- hence my two day week on the greys.👍

Is that your best week ever Kev? Very impressive. 👍 I am rather ashamed to say only 3 for me this week with the Daystate. (It was only a two day week!) 2582 Total

Snap! I have just been booked in for my colonoscopy in 10 days time and and already have the Devils juice waiting in the cupboard. Unfortunately, due to my anti platelet medication , if they do find anything, they can’t treat it there and then, so I will then have to stop the tabets and let them have another go again with the dynorod a few days later. Oh joy!😂

I hope you get rid of the corpses soon or it will be a smelly one! Another good day for you👍

Four for me in the last 2 days. Total 1522

@JohnfromUKRamiril also gave me a dreadful cough- I swapped Rampiril for Losartin last week- 2 days later no cough! I wish I had swapped it months ago.

@Mice! Wow, Wow, Wow - you finally needed the 2nd magazine, you always carried and hoped to use. Well done! The ferrets are going to be well fed. 👍👍👍 @arjimlad nothing wrong with using a 410 and going for a wander/hunt. It is the preferred weapon of choice in our Red Squirrel Society, very few use an air rifle or sit at a feeder. One of the reasons being there is just so much varied woodland spread out over 200 hundred square miles, nearly all very much open to the public, that it is more practical to hunt. We cull between 4000 to 7000 greys a year. In my experience, the greys are very territorial and on each visit, I can point out fairly accurately which tree, copse or clearing, the greys are likely to be found- often dependant on the season and they are not going to sit still for an air rifle. Going for a wander is the only way of seeing what is happening in your area. - You also get to meet folk, who often tell you where they are seeing greys or even ask if you will control the greys on their property. Get the .410 out and enjoy it- even better with a thermal!

BTG, glad it went well. I had the blue light treatment 4 am last October down to Lancaster then once stabilised, a stent at Blackpool. Really impressed with the NHS from the paramedics to the coronary team, they really knew their stuff and kept me fully informed as to what they were doing and what would happen. If they offer you the chance of coronary rehabilitation- take it. The physios, really make you work hard and by the end I could practically run down boulders in the hills rather than descending somewhat gingerly like an old man. I would take note of any possible side effects from the drugs- such as coughs, flatulence, running nose and frozen fingers and go back to your GP to try and vary the dosage or prescription. Enjoy the rest of your life!

I started taking Atorvastin in October but quickly had to halve the dose as it was affecting my liver and kidney functions. The other cocktail of drugs didn’t do me much good either- eg bisoperol affected my circulation that badly that I often couldn’t put a cartridge in a gun and hold the steering wheel was painful. Now awaiting a camera up the derriere to see what other problems the drugs have caused. I feel well but have lost strength and stamina.

@ratchers I have seen this behaviour a few times on the Squirrel Hunter Channel on Youtube. I do enjoy his commentaries- a very dry sense of humour!

Three more today , 2 shot and 1 trapped. Total 1138

2 more shot today with.410 total 1129

Three for me shot over the weekend Total 1127

On Sunday morning, I went for a walk round a friends private wood. It was a welcome change to carry the 12 bore rather than the moderated.410 and also not to worry about a member of the public popping up out of nowhere on the public land where I normally shoot. Two greys were seen and two greys shot but the highlight of the morning was picking up the fawn below with the thermal, it was smaller than an adult rabbit. I left it well alone and as I walked away, I spotted the mother watching nearby.

@Mice! perhaps I might have exaggerated slightly😇, the logs ontop were pushed to one side and the traps sort of lifted and left resting on a corner as if a snout had rooted about. If it happens again, I’ll have to raise them or fix them on a tree. I am trapping in E. wood as well but didn’t catch anything today, although there are still a few greys rushing about and disappearing in the canopy.

A cracking couple of days!👍 Meanwhile, 8 miles upstream, it all went t*ts up for me. Yesterday, I caught 2 greys, unfortunately there was a school visit to the woods and there was kids everywhere so I couldn’t use the airpistol, which is noisy, so I went ‘old school’ and used the sack and cranial dispatch method and somehow I managed to let one escape! 😡No idea how it happened, it has never happened before. Today, the pair of traps I posted a photo yesterday were trashed. It’s wasn’t kids. The traps were held down by 2 heavy logs, which had been pushed to one side, I can only think it was that well known vandal Brock after a peanut breakfast . I have reset the traps and Let see what happens over night .

2 trapped today and one last week in a loan trap. Total 1083

A week ago, I started prebating in two different woods and yesterday I finally set the 8 traps in pairs. Today, I only got a disappointing two ( one in each wood), but I did get a bonus rat!

Ebay- lots of offcuts in every colour and thickness!

Cracking job!👍 Meanwhile 12 miles upstream, my day was an unexpected zilch😡! In 5 hrs, Saw 2 greys, one was above a tent, so couldn’t shoot it! The other was too far away for my 410, although I am sure Mice could have sniped it with his Bsa. I did however see another red and two more tawny owlets at a different site to monday. The Raf were busy buzzing the lake with 4 fighters for an hour or two- absolutely deafening .

Four yesterday Total 1042

I wanted to get out yesterday but the weather was dreadful, so this morning being a Bank Holiday, I was up and out to my local permission at 6.30 before the hikers and dog walkers invade this well known Beauty spot. Normally I take the.410 hushpower, but today I decided to take the Daystate .177. Halfway up the hill, I stopped the car and had a quick scan with the thermal. Blow me there was a grey and a rabbit feeding on the ground. After a bit of contortioning, I wrestled the air rifle out of its bag on the back seat and loaded the magazine. By that time, the grey was sitting nicely on a branch- game on! - except it wasn’t- by the time I had manoeuvred the gun out of the window, it had pushed off, never to be seen again. Oh well….. I parked up and started walking down the path to the walled garden. A blackbird was making an alarm racket, I scanned with the thermal and picked out the ghostly outline of a tawny owl in a yew, further scanning picked up this ball of fluff on the ground below. After a quick photo of mum and owlet, I quickly moved on and left them to it. A hundred yards further on, I reached a viewing station overlooking a wood closed to the public and which I intended to shoot. Looking down there was a grey digging up its hidden breakfast, thwack, it was a solid hit but instead of doing the kickabout, this was ran up a tree. I climbed over the barricade designed to keep the public out and followed the zigzag path down the slope scanning all the time for the shot grey. Instead, I spot another grey close by, also digging up its breakfast. Thwack, this one somersaulted, did a double turn and a Fossbury flop and landed neatly on the path further below me. Walking towards the dead grey, I pick up a signal from the tree where the first grey disappeared. It was sitting quietly in a fork about 50 yds away. I started the stalk to the nearest tree and as I steadied the gun and took aim, the grey just fell out of the tree dead without a shot being fired. My original shot was in the shoulder but had obviously not hit a vital organ. Two fatties- male and female Carrying on to the end of the wood (ignoring all the pigeons, roes and rabbits pretending to be squirrels), I spot another grey playing on a rotten stump. Just a little head was showing, thwack, straight down. Just as I was picking it up, I saw movement in the branches above me. A few minutes of scanning, I spotted it, lying flat on a branch, thwack- another straight down. Two of the smallest squirrels I have shot. By 9 am, I could hear shouts of children enjoying themselves so time to go home for breakfast. Passing by the walled garden, the blackbirds were still giving distress cries and mother tawny was sitting quite openly in a bare tree watching the owlet who had now taken up residence in a rhododendron. An interesting morning.