Gotcha!

The ProStalk camera nabbed this photo of my night-time visitor last night. There are 9 photos in all, taken in 3 bursts of 3. The info on the card shows that foxy came through twice - once around 8.40pm and then again this morning at around 6.15.

Event 0001 2009/11/25 20:39:06
Event 0002 2009/11/26 06:14:04
Event 0003 2009/11/26 06:15:44

Finding permission

One of the things we get asked over and over again is "how can I get permission to shoot pigeons?" People ring a few farmers, are told to get lost, and think it's impossible.

So when I met Will Beasley recently for our magazine series on pigeon decoying, I asked him that question. Will and his father Phil run one of the biggest pigeon guiding businesses in Britain, so if anyone knows, it's him.

And here's what he told me, cunningly reproduced via the amazing soundcloud.com. There's some good tips in here; listen and learn...

On test: Pro-Stalk trail camera

I've been waiting for an opportunity to test out the £200 Hawke Pro-Stalk camera from Deben - a nifty bit of kit that you set up strapped to a tree, then come back a day later and marvel at the high quality pictures and video it's snapped of any passing wildlife. At least, that's the theory.

Well the opportunity came along today. Long story, but when our local council issued us with slop bins for food waste, they hadn't reckoned on people like me who regularly have to dispose of the inedible bits of assorted pheasants, deer, trout and the like. The answer of course is an environmentally friendly composting scheme, otherwise known as digging a hole at the end of the garden. The foxes seem to think I'm doing this for their benefit, and do their best to dig the juiciest bits up again.

So I thought I'd set up the camera overlooking their latest hole. The instructions seem simple enough. Like any electronic gizmo, you slot in the batteries (4 D-cells), turn it on, then use the menu to set the time, date, etc. You can set up the camera using a combination of slide switches and a menu, to take photos or video, adjust the delay between pictures, and so on.

I've set it with the minimum delay of 1min between triggerings, to take a 90sec video each time it's triggered. During darkness, it should use its built-in infra-red LEDs to film in night vision. The final touch, a scoop of smelly dog food in the bottom of the hole.

Now I just leave it and wait to see what appears on the card...

UPDATE: Well I clearly got something wrong, because this morning the dogfood had gone, but the camera hadn't taken any video. Back to the instructions, which are of limited help because they were translated into English by someone who, er, doesn't exactly count English as their first language. Reading between the lines, though, I see that they're talking about an IR 'flash', rather than 'lamp', which suggests that maybe video isn't an option during darkness. Which could explain why Mr Fox was able to sneak in and eat his meal unrecorded. So tonight I'm setting it to take photos rather than video. And putting another dollop of dogfood down the hole. At this rate I'll be getting an award from the RSPCA for services to foxes!

Bracken in her new home

We picked up Bracken today, full of apprehension as always with a new pup - what will the old dog think of her, will she be ok, are we feeding her right, etc, etc!

Well, so far so good! She's getting on fine with Skye (although Skye was unimpressed by Bracken's attempt to feed from her!), eating well, dropping the usual items around the place, and generally getting into mischief.

Of course she's brought the entire house to a standstill, no work getting done - isn't that what puppies are for?!

Not long now!

That's enough about tiresome antis - on to happier subjects: this young lady will be joining the Marchington family in a week or so (we'll have to get her out of the trouser-chewing habit pdq!). She was bred by Shaun, a Sporting Shooter reader and keen beater/shooter who lives in Reading. By concidence, I had bumped into him in the early days of the magazine when I photographed a shoot run by the father of Sheena, who was our sub-editor at the time. Small world!

Andy Richardson had been pushing us to get a pup earlier this year, but at that time the head ruled the heart and we stayed firm. After several weeks of campaigning by the kids, we caved in - with the result that we went round to Shaun's to view his litter of black labs.

No-one could resist this lot, and in a flash we'd fallen for this one, provisionally named 'Bracken' although Andy will pull my leg mercilessly about that, and we will probably change our minds several times before it's settled. They're almost weaned, and depending how that goes the current plan is that we'll pick her up in about a week's time. Expect this blog to be over-run with cute puppy pictures for some time to come.

Incidentally, last time we spoke to Shaun he had 3 male pups unsold - if you're interested drop me a line and I'll pass your details on.

Anti's rant at the BBC

Douglas Batchelor, £100,000+ p.a. chief exec of the League Against Cruel Sports, is incandescent at BBC Countryfile's excellent coverage of National Taste of Game Week (Julia Bradbury went shooting with game chef Mike Robinson, and shot, cooked and ate a hen pheasant - for the next week or so, you can watch the programme on the BBC iPlayer here).

Batchelor's rant follows the organisation's PR disaster on the start of the hunting season, where the BBC declined to screen some wobbly, pointless video footage which, LACS claimed, showed illegal hunting (LACS have just spent thousands kitting out their 'monitors' with fancy new video cameras, only to discover that the BBC won't ever use their footage, as it infringes their guidelines).

His whiny open letter to the BBC Trust is a feeble attempt to play the 'impartiality' card - as if shooting game was some hugely contentious issue. It isn't. And writing a pack of lies and half-truths to the BBC won't make it so.

Batchelor claims in his letter: "Your report also failed to mention the thousands upon thousands of birds which are shot and then discarded and left to rot". That's an outright lie. I challenge Batchelor to provide a shred of evidence to support his wild claim.

He goes on to talk about: "predator control employed on shooting estates where land is managed for a single species, such as the pheasant, which systematically wipe out any other animals which pose a threat to the birds". What rubbish!

Faced with dwindling public support, and the prospect of a government who will treat them with the contempt they deserve, it seems the antis are resorting to the age-old tactic of telling porkies. There's another example here where LACS are suggesting that a) Being crass and tastless with a dead animal is cruel and illegal and b) Repeal of the hunting act would make it legal again. Neither of which is true.

Firearms law

With my coterminous firearms and shotgun certificates coming up for renewal shortly, I've been rushing round getting 8 identical passport photos, finding 2 upstanding members of the community to vouch for me, filling in all the forms with scrupulous accuracy, etc.

I've been fighting off the temptation to think 'the law is an ass' and 'no wonder criminals don't bother with all this form filling and just get their guns on the black market'. And then this comes along. A regular member of the public, an ex-soldier no less, finds a discarded gun in the street, does the decent thing and hands it in at the police station. And his thanks? He gets a criminal record, and is now facing 5 years in jail.

There is no flexibility written into our firearms legislation. Holding a gun without a certificate? You're guilty, end of. No defence of 'in the public interest', reasonable excuse or what-have-you. Of course we have to be tough on armed crime, but this sort of thing just makes the law look stupid.

I think I'll just double-check those forms before I send them off, all the same...