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Rain rain go away


Clodhopper
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nwhoxf.jpgI was kindly invited to join JDog in the wolds yesterday afternoon for a spot of crop protection. The weather for Saturday however did not look too promising, rain all day, clearing at around 6 pm. We agreed to meet up at 3.30pm as the promised rain did not materialise to the predicted extent and we were hopeful of it clearing completely by late afternoon.

We arrived at a vantage point and soon spotted a large amount of birds heading along a valley to the pea field in question. Even from this point you could see the damage, shown in the picture above, the peas were around 2 inches high but along a line of trees  on the southern edge the crop was barely visible. The farmer had put numerous bangers and scaring devices but this did not have the desired effect. JDog has walked over the field numerous times but again the birds returned.The felling of trees not being a viable option due to the sheer amount of them.

So we set up 50 yards apart, in the tree line with the wind coming over our left shoulder. We anticipated the birds would come up the valley from behind see the pattern and turn in. And this they did right from the outset. We soon had ten birds to add to our pattern, many collected by my little cocker from the under growth. The birds kept coming and for the next 20 minutes we had a que of customers. The line then moved slightly so the birds were appearing over the hedge to our left, this required a slight adjustment to the pattern to allow the to birds to get in. This improved things immediately and we continued get birds in amongst the decoys.

At this point I tried firing a few shots to scare the birds ( well that is my excuse) but this still did not deter them. Eventually the line dried up as the birds headed to the far end of this very large field to feed around as gas banger that was not as scary as it’s designer had hoped.

For 3 hours we kept mostly dry and hopefully gave this valuable crop a chance to grow a little. Certainly 47 less birds will be there to eat it. Some of these are destined for my freezer and the remainder are heading of to the gamedealer this morning.

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9 minutes ago, pigeon controller said:

Well done, this bird scaring is becoming popular and a good result. 

What amazed me was that we had heavy rain Friday and Saturday yet when I drove off the field the ground was still very firm and I left no impression with the tyres.

As Walker eluded to, we have had very little in the way of rain this spring and the ground soon absorbs what we do get. 

We chickened out and walked to our position as neither vehicle is a proper off roader.

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6 minutes ago, JJsDad said:

Bit surprised your `model` pigeons with outstretched wings didnt deter them as advised by that font of all countryside knowledge Natural England ! 

I will keep trying, I am new to this and maybe a bit green in the nuances of whirly bird scarers. I plan to save my pocket money and buy a loud speaker with an alarm call cd. I cannot find any You Tube videos on how best to deploy these but I guess somebody will soon have one uploaded.

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6 minutes ago, Clodhopper said:

I will keep trying, I am new to this and maybe a bit green in the nuances of whirly bird scarers. I plan to save my pocket money and buy a loud speaker with an alarm call cd. I cannot find any You Tube videos on how best to deploy these but I guess somebody will soon have one uploaded.

Have you tried JDog , singing?????

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You know how it is. Rain all day and more forecast and you try to put someone off but they insist on coming. I even resorted to the 'I am going to spend the afternoon in bed with my wife' trick but Clodhopper still turned up in the rain at 3:30 and it rained hard until we got to the field when it miraculously stopped and we only saw a few spots thereafter.

The strong wind made these birds tricky. I know I always say that when I have missed a few but they really were. The ones from the right and overhead dived straight down whilst the ones from the left described enormous arcs to get back to the pattern. After four minutes in the hides Clodhopper had four and I hadn't even had a shot. Thereafter matters evened out a bit.

Those peas have had a hammering and they will receive the attention from a lot of pigeons until they realise that the adjacent field of mustard holds more attraction for them.

Aga Man, if you read this I can tell you that you missed out on a good and dry afternoon. A third gun was needed in another field.

 

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Well done boys, a case of who dares wins.

I had a beer or 2 and enjoyed some time with Mrs aga😘so not all was lost. I really do needto get off my backside and protect some crops this week tho, my farms are starting to think i have given up.

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I am with you Mr JDog on this getting wet thing while pigeon shooting , unlike our good friend from the Midlands who is never put off with monsoon conditions and any other bad weather combinations come to that , but then we might think differently if we were working all the week and only had the odd half day that needed to be planed well in advance .

Anyhow well done for braving the elements and was well worth it by the sound of it .

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