Shooting rabbits off a quad bike

Just go and film Geoff, they said. He's shooting rabbits off his quad bike, they said. Sure, no problem. Filming off a quad bike zipping across rough ground - I can handle that. Oh, and it's in the pitch dark...

Actually it came out not half bad, with the aid of some cunning lighting rigs powered by the fabulous Deben lithium lamping batteries (how does the film industry cope without these things?).

Mind you, my thighs took a week to recover from all that clinging on. I don't ride horses, but I imagine the problems are similar - at least, they would be if you were riding a horse and trying to hold a camera steady at the same time.

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Airgun hunting on Skye

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AirHeads - shooting ginger rabbits on Skye

Postscript: My Mum found this one on YouTube and I got a right telling off, cos she doesn't like us to shoot the ginger rabbits!

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Nice lens, shame about the focus

I went out again today with that Canon 300mm 2.8 L. It's been gradually dawning on me that something isn't right - and I think I've worked out what.

Quite simply, it doesn't focus where you think it does. This photo of a rabbit was what settled it for me. I know I focused on the rabbit's eye; the little red light blinked on it, it looked totally sharp in the viewfinder - but when I looked at the image on the camera's preview screen, the rabbit wasn't sharp, as you can see clearly in the cropped-in version below. Darn!

OK, I thought, camera shake - I was using a monopod, but it was only 1/125th of a second. But hang on, look at the leaves a foot in front of the rabbit: sharp as you like.

So I did an experiment - all very scientific, using the fence around our newly-dug vegetable patch. Sure enough, at a range of 10 yards, the actual focus is about 6ins in front of where you think it is - the point where you've actually focused, and where it looks sharp in the viewfinder.

 

It's not really practical to 'aim off', so I'm going to have to investigate this further. The effect is identical with the lens on my 20D, and my 70-200 lens behaves impeccably on both camera bodies, so the lens itself is chief suspect at the moment. Comments and suggestions from more experienced photographers will be most welcome!

UPDATE 1: Hmm, bit of googling and I'm already discovering there's more to this than meets the eye - and maybe there was a reason why the 550D was about a quarter the price of the 5D Mk II I really wanted.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to the readers who've offered helpful suggestions in the comments. I tried a more scientific test, downloading a test sheet here,  and photographing it following the instructions. The results suggest the camera is fine - I got accurate results with a Sigma 70-200mm 2.8, and a Canon 50mm 1.8 - but the 200mm lens is showing a significant degree of what I now know is called "front focus". The focus point for all three photos below was at "0" - these are cropped in to show the result.

Canon 50mm 1.8

Sigma 70-200 2.8

Canon 300mm 2.8

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Phwoar, look at the size of that!

I've borrowed this lovely 300mm f/2.8 Canon L lens for the weekend - what a beauty! It's had a bit of a battering over its life, but the glass is still as lovely as ever, and focusing is smooth and fast.

I stuck it on my 550D and went in search of wildlife. Saw a roe doe creeping through the trees, but she didn't want to play.

Then a few young rabbits... and a couple of older ones, including this one that appears to have had myxy, and an ear full of fleas.

And then I thought, what the heck, I'll see if I can call up a fox. Within seconds of squeaking there was a brown flash in the undergrowth, just 20 yards away. He sat checking me out from behind a tree for a few seconds, didn't like what he saw, and scarpered.

And all I got was this shot of where he was a second earlier - you can just see him (circled) sneaking off through the trees. Better luck next time perhaps!

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A great day's ferreting

It wasn't the biggest bag ever - just four rabbits in fact. But it was a great day out, and a momentous one for my elder daughter Emma's new ferret, Boo. That's him above, with the punk hairdo after a bit of a tussle underground. And below, Emma with Boo and one of my jills - Emma is sporting her furry headband thingy she got for Christmas, and looking a bit more stylish than my usual ferreting companions.

It was Boo's first introduction to working, and he took to it very well - bolting three rabbits into the purse nets, and coming back up straight away. On the last hole (why do we always have to do that 'one last hole'?) he killed one underground. As it turned out, someone long ago had dumped a load of old chicken wire, concrete slabs and rolls of barbed wire into that very spot, and covered it over with earth. That made digging somewhat difficult.

Fortunately we had Emma's boyfriend Steve with us. That's him in the photo above. He did a splendid job of pulling up wire and slabs, then digging down to find the spot indicated by the Ferret Finder (being the oldest member of the party, these days I get to operate the Ferret Finder, and delegate the manual labour). And sure enough there was Boo, watching over rabbit number 4.

After that we decided it was time for a cup of tea and turkey sandwiches, took a few photos and called it a day - one we'll all remember for a long time!

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The life of the rabbit, 1945 style

The Life of the Rabbit (1945) from British Council Film Archive on Vimeo.

An old black-and-white 'public information' style film - no PC waffle, just good honest facts presented in straightforward style. Can you imagine this film being made today?

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If there's a Russell in your hedgerow...

...don't be alarmed now, he'll just be catching the coneys.

On Friday I went ferreting on Romney Marsh with Russell Summers, a colourful character who, it would seem, is a bit of a legend in Kent - both for his ferreting skills and his unique way with words.

Born and "dragged up" (as he tells it) in London, he couldn't wait to get out to the countryside, where he's developed a passion for rabbiting, with ferrets, nets and dogs. He doesn't like to use a gun, he told me, certainly not around his ferrets or dogs. Besides, having seen him work with his long nets, I can't imagine he'd have much need for a gun. Not much gets past him!

He has adopted the new quick-set type of long-net, which is carried in a wire-framed basket with a shoulder strap. It was impressive to see Russell peg down one end of the net, then walk backwards pausing only briefly to plant each pole; a 100-yard net was set in little over a minute.

Then it's in with the ferrets. Russell doesn't muck about with two or three ferrets - he was using 11 on Friday, all bred by himself (he's very proud of his pure-bred strain of wild polecats, but that's another story).

On this crisp, sunny morning the rabbits weren't hanging about to argue with that lot - they bolted well from the first hole, and soon we had a dozen or so in the bag.

Later in the day we moved to a long run of old hedgerow, where the rabbits were less cooperative. Despite the large team (a "business") of ferrets, they were hole-hopping rather than following the plan and bolting into the nets. That's where we really could have done with a decent dog or two.

Still, there was plenty of Mark Gilchrist's game pie, and a Thermos of hot soup, to cheer us up. And even the most tardy ferret was retrieved well before sunset.

Thanks to Mark Gilchrist, his friend Cai, plus Russell and his colleagues, for a very successful and informative day. I'll be writing a feature about it for our next issue.

Meanwhile, here's the song I alluded to in the headline. Enjoy...

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Interview with Cork Graham

Yesterday I gave a telephone interview to Cork Graham of the US website Cork Outdoors - he was interested in my Rabbit hunting DVD. Cork commented that many of the fieldcraft skills mentioned in the DVD are equally applicable to hunting cottontails in the US - and indeed to other types of hunting.

It's a good point. All those 'wasted' teenage years spent skulking round the woods and fields with a BSA Meteor (and later a Mercury) were actually the perfect training ground for hunting larger quarry like deer and foxes, and gave me a love of wildlife and the outdoors that grows stronger every year. There's worse things for a teenager to be getting up to.

UPDATE: Cork has done me proud, with an extensive review of the DVD as well as the interview, split into two parts. It's all on his blog here »

Incidentally, if you're visiting Cork's website, do check out his earlier career - fascinating stuff!

When contextual advertising goes wrong

It's clever how Google put those 'contextual' ads next to blogs, photos and videos on websites. You may see some in the narrow column on the right of this blog page.

Usually they are very well targeted - on this blog, for instance, I often see ads for shooting grounds, Fieldsportschannel.tv, the Countryside Alliance etc. Things have certainly moved on from the days when any mention of the word 'gun' brought a rash of ads about survivalist groups and self-defence classes in New York.

Just now and again they get it wrong though. Today I went to see Mark Gilchrist to take some photos for his next article - we're featuring a delicious dish of rabbit cooked in a creamy cider sauce. I went back to look at an old Youtube clip where Mark explains how to skin and prepare a rabbit - and up popped this ad for a rabbit boarding kennels.

Sorry guys, this rabbit won't be needing to board anywhere, even with the tempting offer of an introductory discount!

How to hunt rabbits

Hubert Hubert writes an excellent blog about his exploits here. His post 'How to Hunt Rabbits...' is a really valuable guide - a distillation of everything he's found out in his first year of learning to hunt. If you're taking up airgun hunting, read it and save yourself a year of discovering all this the hard way!

Mark Avery and the dead parrot

I do enjoy following the blog of RSPB conservation director Mark Avery. It's a real insight into the RSPB mind-set - and I'm constantly bemused by the knots these guys tie themselves in with their this-bird-is-better-than-that-bird approach to the environment.

The latest muddle is over "the lovely ring-necked parakeet" being added to the list of birds that can be killed under General Licence. Birding types don't know which way to jump. It's non-native, and a threat to our native wildlife, so perhaps it should be wiped out like the mink (they seem to have no problem with the idea of exterminating mink with extreme prejudice: two legs good, four legs bad). But parakeets are birds, so perhaps they should be protected at all costs? Erk! It's a conundrum worthy of a Monty Python sketch.

When it comes to birds of prey, all logic flies out of the window, along with any chance of the birders comprehending the concept of wildlife management. Shooters get sterotyped as bloodthirsty killers, and the clamour for 'tighter regulation' drowns out all sensible discussion.

Just look at the RSPB's latest Birdcrime report, and see the huge fuss about "raptor persecution" (for which the numbers are actually down). There's hardly a whisper about the 746 incidents (62% of the total) which relate to non birds of prey. Are some birds more equal than others? It would appear so. Simon Hart of the Countryside Alliance has some good points to make on the subject - read them here.

As an aside, I'm amazed at how little we hear of the illegal trade in songbirds like goldfinches and linnets. Huge numbers of these lovely little birds are trapped and sold on the black market, and yet how often do we hear the RSPB campaigning about it? It doesn't appear on any of the lists of 'wildlife crime priorities'. I'm keen to follow this up in the magazine - any info on the trade, and the methods used by the illegal trappers, would be gratefully received, anonymity respected if you request it.

Anyway, back to the point: The General Licence system is a nonsense, made necessary by the nonsense that is the EU-driven bird protection legislation.

On the one hand we have the humble rabbit, which has been chased, shot, caught and eaten by man for thousands of years. Until recently the law placed an obligation on landowners to control rabbits, to reduce the damage to agriculture. Are rabbits remotely threatened? Of course not. And do we need some twisted law that says 'all rabbits are protected, except when we say they're not'? Of course we don't

And on the other hand we have the humble woodpigeon, which has been chased, shot, caught, etc etc just the same. Is it remotely threatened? Of course not. And yet each year we sit and chew our fingernails, wondering what ridiculous nonsense the government will have dreamt up. Will we even be allowed to shoot pigeons any more? Will we have to fill out a form in triplicate, proving that we tried offering the pigeons counselling, serving them with ASBOs, and still they won't stop eating the crops, so reluctantly we'll just have to shoot them?

It's a complete nonsense, a product of the confused protectionism that says four legs are bad, two legs are good, and two legs with talons are right up there with God.

Stalking high up on a Perthshire hillside last week, I was privileged to see a sea eagle (swooping after a pair of grouse we'd disturbed from the heather). We stood and watched through the binoculars, in awe of the magnificent bird.

Funny, I remarked to the stalker, that 'they' are busy introducing one deadly killer into the Highlands, while doing their utmost to exterminate another, the mink. 'Aye' he said, and shook his head. He's used to being dictated to by do-gooders who think they know his hill better than him - folk who won't let him burn a small patch of heather to stop the heather beetle because of rules to protect the very environment that the heather beetle is going to devastate.

In days gone by we managed the countryside like an allotment, encouraging nature to produce a surplus which we then harvested. Nowadays we treat it like a municipal garden, selecting our 'favoured' species for the flower beds according to their popular appeal. Everyone loves a raptor. Keep off the grass, don't pick the raptors. What's that non-native weed species doing there, get rid of it, it doesn't fit the plan.

Local people whose fathers and grandfathers created the countryside are no longer trusted to look after it; they're tied up with red tape, rules, regulations and certificates to ensure they've been brainwashed into accepting the 'approved' way of thinking. Independent spirits, eccentrics and characters are not tolerated.

Maybe that's why I find myself increasingly drawn to the wild places (and the wild people) where the dead hand of modern countryside management hasn't yet reached. Hopefully the tide will turn before it does, because we're in danger of losing something we don't even know we've got.

Fame and rabbit pies

Mark Gilchrist tells me he was stopped by the police on his way back from the Midland (towing a trailer through Kent villages late at night tends to attract attention). Name? Mark Gilchrist. What, the Mark Gilchrist?!

Turns out the copper is a regular Sporting Shooter reader, and reads Mark's cookery feature each month. He's particularly keen on Mark's rabbit pie recipe, which we featured in a recent issue. Can't argue with that, it is delicious!

Coursing is legal - with a cheetah!

Photo: www.fieldsportschannel.tv

Check out this story (with video) in today's Sunday Times. OK, so it's as much publicity stunt as it is real life, but it does show up the Hunting Act as a complete dog's breakfast. And it provided another opportunity for LACS's Louise Robertson to sound like a whiny pointless idiot: "The link between teaching an animal to hunt and the eventual release of captive-bred animals into the wild is extremely tenuous" she says. Perhaps she'd rather teach predators to say "One veggie burger and a packet of organic muesli please."

Iranian rabbit problem?

You'd think that Iranians had plenty on their mind at the moment, with the upheaval in their country brought home by this poignant video of the last seconds of Neda, a protester shot in Tehran.

Oddly, the counter on this site shows an ever increasing number of visitors from Iran, looking at this post about Danny Sumpter's preferred method of snaring rabbits. The diagram of how to set the snare is particularly popular.

Is there a specially bad rabbit problem in Iran, or is there something else going on here? If you have any information, do let me know.

Nice one Jake

A while back I got the following email:

hi my name is Jake on june the 7 2009 i killed my first rabbit with my weihrauch hw95 air rifle .22 cal. when i went there were there were not that many rabbits so please can you tell me what is the best time to go rabbit hunting throw the day and also when i go rabbit hunting is it crusial to were camo

Now you could write a book (or produce a 70-min dvd!) on that lot, but I did get back to him with what I hoped were some useful pointers:

Hi Jake, 

Well done on your first rabbit! If you have a photo you could send it in to Sporting Shooter, and we may use it in the mag.  The best times to see rabbits are at first light and last thing in the evening. The weather makes a difference too - they generally don't like heavy rain, for instance. Sometimes it's best to hide up in a hedge or etc near the holes, and wait for them to come out. Make sure you wait downwind of the holes so they don't scent you, and let them get a few yards from the holes before firing, in case they kick themselves back in.  Camo isn't essential, although it helps. Muted colours are ok. The thing that really catches their eye is movement. Try not to be silhouetted against a clear background (especially the sky), and make very slow movements if you are in view. Watch the rabbits for signs of alarm, and freeze if they look up.  Hope this helps - let us know how you get on.  Best wishes,  James  

...I'd forgotten all about it - and then today I received this:

Hi its me Jake again, thanks for the tips there really good and helpful. Also here is a picture of the rabbit i shot :) i sent all the pictures just incase you like one of them. If you do happen to put one of them in a magazine please can you tell me what the magizine is called and what issue it will be.  Thanks so much for the tips.

Nice one Jake!

Pipe down Marchington!

There's nothing like a reader to stop folks like me getting airs and graces. This letter arrived today, ticking me off for talking too much in my Rabbits DVD, unlike that fine fellow Andy Richardson (oh, how he will pull my leg over this one!) who gets on with the job...

Filming in the dark!

I was out well before dawn with Terry Doe today, filming for our next airgun DVD. Filming in the dark requires some special gear - this was shot with an infra-red floodlight, and the night vision attachment on the camera. Curiously, Terry's jacket has come out as a plain, light colour, although in fact it's camouflaged like his trousers, as you can see in the photo below. Funny how different wavelengths of light make things look very different. Worth remembering before you throw all your hunting gear in the wash with 'whiter than white' detergent full of optical brighteners!

Dawn is always my favourite time to be out. As the sun rose, a few rabbits came out to feed, and I managed to capture a couple of kills on video. We saw a host of wildlife, including a fox, buzzards, rooks and jackdaws, and dozens of small birds from blue tits to chaffinches. A good outing, and plenty of good footage in the can. Can't ask for more than that.

Rabbits, rifles, Berettas and more

Whew! What a week that was. I've been rabbit stalking and lamping with Terry Le Chem...

Tried out the new Beretta SV10 Perennia at West London Shooting School...

And taken Chloe Finch from the Countryside Alliance to learn rifle shooting with Ian Spicer of Red Deer Outdoors, at the British Sporting Rifle Club at Bisley...

Along the way, I came across some terrific bushcraft items by Neil Andrews (who cooks a mean venison stir-fry, and will shortly be instructing on some new bushcraft courses at Cowdray in Sussex)...

And I discovered Schultz & Larsen rifles, which I'd never encountered before, and discovered they're really rather good (here's Ian Spicer firing one)...

So to relax this weekend, I went fishing and caught my first fish of the year – two trout which are now in the fridge being turned into trout gravadlax, a cunning recipe borrowed from Mark Gilchrist (you'll find it in the June issue of Sporting Shooter)...

...just one little hiccough – today I discovered some lowlife has cloned my bank card, and is currently living it up in Canada at my expense! The bank has frozen my account, so that's put paid to his fun. It also has the unfortunate side-effect that I can't use my bank account either. Hmm.

Free food for the unemployed

I've been enjoying the blog Rabbit Stew by "Hubert Hubert in The Wild West Midlands" who describes himself as a "jobless, middle-aged bloke who takes to the fields with an air rifle in search of free food." He takes an unusual look at subjects that are familiar to us shooters - his latest post, for instance, is entitled Zen and the art of shooting rabbits.