2021

The Three Legged Stool states you need a suitable habitat, food throughout the life cycle, and then reasonable freedom from predation for birds to flourish.

Planting trees is very fashionable these days, and most people think it is good conservation practice. Aside from replacing what our ancestors felled, there is also a halo of virtue because of carbon capture and global warming. Like all such fashions, however, there are specific considerations that can make a big difference to how much good is being done.

We all believe in The Code of Good Shooting Practice, don’t we? Well, we certainly should, because it has been written by our representative organisations as set of principles that any decent sportsman or woman should not just accept, but embrace and promote.

Whether you are part of or manage a syndicate or larger shoot, it is vital at this time everything is organized for the smooth running of the shoot days. 

In a survey of over 2,500 individuals at the beginning of 2021, four percent had made the switch away from lead, 20% had started testing alternatives, and a further 28% were planning to do so in the coming season.

The Peridx Spring Trap has now been added to the list of approved traps for stoat control in Wales under General Licences 019 and 020. 

Mike Swan commiserates over the decline in fish populations in the south country chalk streams.

There is a school of thought that says grey partridges just cannot take rain, and that the chicks will all expire if they have to face anything much more than a light shower. Well, it clearly isn’t true.

From here on in, the two most used rat poisons, bromadiolone and difenacoum will be as good as useless on my shoot, and if we were daft enough to use them, we would simply be risking sending the chemicals up the food chain to the likes of our barn owls, kestrels and red kites, while having no significant impact on the rats.

With the home bred ducks busy with their test flights, and the first autumn migrants arriving, now is the moment to start feeding your flight pond. With luck, some of the families will have mums and dads that visited you last season, so will be only too happy to investigate now. Wouldn’t it be a pity if they found that the cupboard was bare?