It’s been pouring for an hour now and I sit here listening beneath my glass canopy; the drumskin of a rainwater percussionist. The sound, like a rock anthem or a classical overture, is awesome. Not just because it’s natural, not just because it’s rhythmic, but because it pulses like the push of blood through an … Continue reading Rain Dance
I stepped outside and the cool morning mist caressed my face like a lover's gentle kiss. The swirl of vapour swathed the motor and for the first time since winter, I had to scrim the moisture from the windows of the vehicle. The yellow halo of a veiled sun was already auguring an Indian Summer … Continue reading Wildscribbler’s Diary – September 2019
On the second weekend in August (while the rest of the UK was subjected to a battering, torrential rain, and flooding) here in East Anglia we got off lightly with just warm, gale-force winds. Yet the temperature was about 26C. It reminded me of the tent-tearing ‘scirocco’ I endured on my only ever camping trip … Continue reading When The Wind Blows
It’s a sad truth that the older you get, the faster the days fly by. Life seems to be logarithmical. The slow, impatient pace which frustrated your youth becomes the steady progress of mid-life. Before you realise it you’re trying to snatch the essence of every day in later life. You regret the indolent teenage … Continue reading A Strange High Summer Fox Encounter
There was a feeling of deja-vu when the BASC notification came through on my mobile phone today. Buried in the mundane depths of a day job which is the anti-thesis of my outdoor persona, I had to grit my teeth. My shooting, my addiction to being in the wild (and writing about it as often … Continue reading Sun Tzu and the War Against Shooting
The breaking news this afternoon of DEFRA’s release of three new General Licenses is welcome news indeed. I’d like to be among one of the first to thank not only DEFRA for their intervention but also the aggregated efforts of our representative shooting, farming and conservation organisations for their lobbying and advice. Not to mention … Continue reading General Licenses – A Restoration Of Common Sense
Having waited for six weeks, I was delighted to receive an e-mail on my iPhone telling me that my application for a personal General License to control birds ‘Preventing Serious Damage’ had been approved and the License was attached. It was issued by Natural England and signed by James Diamond, their Operational Director. The same … Continue reading The Dissection Of A General License
I met a crow in the wood today. I watched him for a while and he watched me. I could see he was eye-balling the wood margin where a hen pheasant is on eggs in the nettles. He was also watching the nearby hedgerow where the chaffinches were nesting. I raised my shotgun, convinced that … Continue reading I met a crow in the wood today …
This book is for anyone who ranges the countryside harvesting meat for the table, undertaking crop protection and protecting vulnerable species from predation. It is for the mature adult venturing into shooting with a limited knowledge of bird and beast. Or perhaps changing from air rifles to more powerful tools. It is for the kid … Continue reading New Book Launch – Hunting and Fieldcraft with Shotgun and Rifle
The drive home tonight filled me with frustration. The local farmers have been battling with the lack of rain out here in the East and so the irrigation pipes have been laid out and water hungry seedlings are getting a well needed boost from the sprinklers. I stopped near one of my permission fields to … Continue reading Revocation – The Aftermath
