A stalking tale

[markha 99]

Well I was up very early to get out for a shoot on a couple of my permissions.

The 1st stop was at the young farmers farm to do my usual clearing of crows and anyhting opportunist that comes my way.

It was a very cold day with a keen breeze blowing and after sat hidden for ages with my flask and a choccy bar I decided enough was enough and headed back to the warmth of the car heater

 

A short drive up snowed up and slippy back roads (new snow tyres are a godsend) to the big Dads farm with the intention of getting a pheasant or two.

 

I had a walk round all the normal holding areas, icluding the woods:

 

 

 

 

And all I saw were some bounding rabbit/hare tracks that had a fresh dusting of wind blown snow in them, haha, I thought, lets have a wander after this cotton tail, after a while wandering along the rabbbit tracks I got slightly side tracked by a flight of crows that had just landed in a large oak tree about 70yards away.

Now, in between them and me is a semi finished agri-building that would provide the perfect cover for me to close the distance.

So quietly and slowly in to the shed I went, now this is when I spotted some very fresh tracks indeed:

 

 

 

 

Needless to say the crows now took a very distant bottom place as the stalk was now on for something for the larder.

I wandered here and wandered there, quietly, smoothly, trying to keep the noise from my boots sqeaking in the snow to a minimum.

After about 300m along the hedge row and just in to open ground another clue awaited:

 

 

 

 

So this little fella had taken flight, you can just see the wing tip patern in the powder snow, Now, where had it gone.

I slowly headed of in the general direction of the birds take off, basically in to the middle of an empty field. Empty apart from one thing... A sheep feeder, the big square type on wheels, so slowly I move closer, my gun at the ready, safety off, top barrel 1/4 choke for the 1st shot and bottom with 1/2 for the second. Closer and closer I get, right to the point that I can peer inside the 'empty' feeder.

 

I was a bit dismayed and decided to walk a bit faster on to the next field, safety back on and gun now held low,,,Then that unmistacble noise of wings beating frantically, the bloody thing was just round the front of the feeder and I tell you, it took off like a bloody firework, Safety off, gun brought up, bottom barrel selcted, bird now realy moving fast and upwards, bang goes the gun with the bird at perhaps 45yds and that was my only chance at that one, it flew right to the top of a very old hay shed with an apex slate roof, It perched there for perhaps 10 seconds then gently glided back down the other side.

 

I did have a stalk towards its estimated landing point, and I did hear it calling quiet close to me, but I never did flush that sneaky bird out again.

 

So all in all a nice morning following fresh animal tracks in the snow, with a freezing breeze on my cheeks and intermittent blue sky and sunshine.

 

Cheers Mark

[Mastiff 7]

Good write up

[doddsy1970 9]

Hahaha dont you just hate it when that happens........ get yourself a dog.... Nice looking scenery though

[DERBOY 18]

nice right up their markha . he will be their again if the food about .

[dave1372 83]

Great writeup and pics.