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Today's Magic Flight


Grandalf
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Very late to start this season due domestic problems and a trapped nerve in my back.

However, this morning was the morning.   Reveille at 03 stupid hours.   Dogs out, dogs in, breakfast (porridge), ablutions and on the road at 0410.   Had been carefully briefed on where to go by well meaning friends.   Missed the turning into a field gate on a main road where the 0530 speed limit seems to be much higher than the one enforced during daylight hours, and had to settle for somewhere else.   (Amazing how many different tones of car horns there are and how loudly they sound in the wee small hours of the morning).   Anyway, as it happens all this was to my advantage.   Long walk to my alternative marsh but down a long and even concrete road - the locals will have recognised the place already - over the railway crossing and set up on 'Dave's' gate.   I usually prefer the next one but changed my mind today.   Before 0700 the first skeins were airborne.   Had one down at two minutes to seven followed by a watery retrieve for Merlyn.   She, like me, is getting on in years but also very keen.

By 0730 I had my bag limit of pinks (4) and then just sat back and watched the action for the next two hours.   Tens and tens of thousands of birds came past me, over me and, in a couple of cases, damn nearly through me.   On and on and on in a seemingly endless procession.    And the sound - Never ever forget the sound of pinks.   Wonderful to be back in the real world.

Having arranged a lady to care for The Memsahib for the day there was no way I was going to waste the day by going home.   I sat in the hide and had a prolonged walk around the local area until 1330 then took a leisurely stroll back to the truck.  Never saw another person at less than half a mile until I got back to the village where we park.   No other fowlers in my local area and no shots heard from the surrounding area.

Watched 5 Chinese Water Deer going about there business.   Numerous other birds flew over the area and a fox was 'chased' down the railway line, which sits on an embankment, by a man in an orange boiler suit and white bone-dome with a large hammer over his shoulder.   The Charlie was about 400 yards in front of him and ran along the track for over half a mile.   Full marks to my old lab for noticing this first - at a range of about half a mile.   I had to get the binoculars out to see what it was.   She is, like most other old dogs, selectively deaf but there is obviously nothing wrong with her eyesight.

Anyway, a fantastic morning in a fantastic spot.

It may not be 'real' fowling but for a gentleman of my years it will do.

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