Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2019 i The Field

IF you had to pick seven weeks of the year during which stopping the control of pest birds would cause maximum harm, 25 April to 14 June would be a good choice. Natural England’s revocation this spring of three General Licences for killing crows, magpies, woodpigeons and other common species caused mayhem. Nesting birds, young livestock and newly-sown crops were all hammered. Gamekeepers, farmers and commercial pest controllers could only stand back and watch. It was a disaster. Natural England (NE) blamed everyone but themselves, claiming their hand had been forced by a legal challenge from Wild Justice, a trouble-making triumvirate headed up by populist TV presenter Chris Packham. Countryside organisations, meanwhile, insisted they had not been caught napping and that the crisis had come ‘out of the blue’. Unpredicted…

This is a sporting estate in one of Scotland’s wildest, most remote locations. The 15,000-acre Highland estate straddles the western end of Loch Monar and most of the land is accessible only by boat. The sport includes walked-up grouse shooting, red deer stalking and loch fishing for trout and pike. The main house, Pait Lodge, is an eight-bedroom Victorian lodge dating from the 19th century and while there is some electricity, oil lamps and candles are still used in the majority of the house. There are three cottages in the sale, two game larders and further estate buildings. The stalking has a five-year average of 23 stags and 35 hinds and calves, while the five-year average for grouse on the estate is 23 brace, with ptarmigan on the higher ground.…

THERE are many similarities between the television personality Jeremy Clark-son and National Farmers Union deputy president Guy Smith. Both have a sharp wit, an ability to goad members of the Green Party and an interest in agriculture. However, the less obvious similarity, underneath their tough exterior, is a shared soft spot for the barn owls residing on-farm. Clarkson’s overenthusiasm to see his barn owls even led to a slapped wrist by viewers after a Countryfile appearance, with a somewhat ironic accomplice in Chris Packham. Barn owls are extraordinary creatures and command great admiration, such that I am confident every countryman could recall a memorable encounter. For me, it was the quartering of a barn owl down the grassy bank of a flight pond at last light, as it paused, suspended…

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A combination of adverse factors combined to make the 2018 grouse season the worst in more than 30 years and led to an estimated 75% of let days across the uplands of Northern England and Scotland being cancelled. The winter was unremittingly long, cold and wet but at the end of February, just when the hours of daylight were lengthening and ground temperatures beginning to rise, the Beast from the East struck, bringing high winds, drifting snow and unusually low temperatures. On high ground, below-freezing weather and snow cover lasted well into the middle of March when there was another blizzard, followed by a further fall of snow at the end of the month. Heather would normally begin to green up in mid to late April, providing vital nutrition and…

Macnab: the one word guaranteed to make any sporting sort mellow with that first-kiss-misty-eyed look. Many attempt the challenge but few complete it. The Macnab Challenge is without doubt one of the toughest, most frustrating, exceptionally exhilarating sporting experiences you can attempt in the British Isles. High pheasants, coveys of wiley partridge and a day crossing High Leicestershire all pale in comparison to the clarion call of a challenge that is not only physically demanding but comes complete with its own history and mythology. This year’s Field Macnab Challenge is the second in association with Blaser, the shotgun and rifle manufacturer and outfitter, whose sporting heritage and style is neatly encapsulated by the all-round nature of the Macnab. Indeed, Blaser is capable of equipping the sportsman or woman with everything…

In between crossings, the crew of Caledonian Mac-Brayne’s MV Clansman ferry swabbed the decks. On land, a few yards away, in the fresh and bitingly raw wind, the Chinese flag flapped above The Original Green Seafood Shack. On the quayside of the ‘Seafood Capital of Scotland’, Iona Robertson, ‘Skipper’ Fiona Dow, Shauna Mackenzie, Maya Al-Hosani, Corrina Macneil, Marion Ritchie, Jacob Barnsley and Andrew Brown get on with their jobs: tubbing up hand-raked cockles from Benderloch; weighing lobsters from the Firth of Lorn; cracking and dressing crab; shucking Creran oysters; boiling up mussels; and de-tailing creel-caught langoustines landed that morning by Gordon the Prawn from the Ocean Star. Next door, in The Fish Shop at D Watt and Son – at 100 years old, Oban’s oldest family business – Carol Watt…

WOOD-FIRED RAINBOW TROUT I’ve been fly-fishing for trout since I was 13 years old and have enjoyed many wonderful meals caught by my own hand. Now that I have kids of my own, I love teaching them how to catch and cook their own food; they really enjoy eating the fish we catch, too. We’d been out for a lovely family day with my dad and had caught two beautiful, shiny specimens. When we got home, we lit the wood-fired oven using a pile of silver birch and roasted our catch (see image, opening page). RECOMMENDED HEAT Heat a wood-fired oven to 200°C/400°F (or a barbecue with a lid to 180-200°C/ 350-400°F). If you’re using a barbecue, set this up for indirect cooking. SERVES 4-6 2 whole rainbow trout (or…

WITH these recent war anniversaries my mind has turned, as nobody else’s probably has, to a different aspect of conflict, a rather more sporting side: pillage and plunder. A skill we Brits developed into a near art form after centuries spent colouring the world map a fetching pink. Anybody who fought us was fair game in the aftermath of defeat and, today, our houses and museums and (especially) regimental messes are full of kit captured in battle or ‘liberated’ afterwards. Nazi helmets and SS daggers, Zulu spears and shields, Indian and Asian swords and guns; our provincial salerooms are full of this lower-grade stuff, some doubtless bought as souvenirs but much of it captured or looted. Even I’ve got some pointy steel killing bits lurking in my study, mementos of…

IF you exclude hereditary complaints (admittedly a rather big if), Britain’s dogs have never been healthier. Advances in veterinary science and improved animal husbandry have virtually eliminated the diseases that once caused so many problems for all canines, from gundogs to lapdogs. Few dog owners today have even heard of canine distemper or hard pad, let alone considered that their animals might be vulnerable to tapeworms or suffer from rickets. For this happy state of affairs we have the pharmaceutical industry to thank for effective vaccinations. Puppies, like children, are far more susceptible to diseases than adult dogs that have a degree of natural immunity, so for many years it has been standard practice to give puppies a course of what are known as core vaccinations to cover the major…

Many women who shoot have issues with recoil. They can be more conscious of it and, frankly, more nervous of it than men. A bad early experience can be really damaging. Where might one begin? Perhaps by noting that the right clothing, effectively padded at the shoulder, and good ear and eye protection will promote initial confidence. It is also critical to diagnose eye dominance correctly. Some women are mis-advised and it may impact on felt recoil and much else. Too often, women have been incorrectly told to change shoulders (it can be sound advice on rare occasions). As one hugely experienced instructor told me recently, “It may work to a degree but closing an eye would have allowed them to advance more rapidly.” Because of issues like this, it…

WHO knows the origin of the phrase, ‘the call of the sea’? But we all know exactly what it means. It’s the feeling that Justin Tew captures in his nostalgia-dappled seascapes. Bathers wade out into Mediterranean shallows; umbrella pines shade the shoreline. Everyone will supply their own special location but for the artist, it is the French Riviera. “My favourite hunting ground is the Côte d’Azure – Villefranche and Cap Ferrat. It’s in my DNA. My father started to go to the South of France back in the 1930s and he loved it. So as children we all went back every year. Where I live now in Bedfordshire you are as far away as possible from the sea – but there is something about being beside the sea. And I…

The uplands of northern England and Scotland have their brief moment of glory in August, as Britain’s 11 million acres of heather moorland – 75% of the world’s remaining resource – burst into honey-scented flower. There is no finer or more magnificent sight than the great swathes of purple-clad hillsides, broken here and there by the black mosaic patterns of this spring’s managed burning, where, in the words of Robert Burns: “the moorcock springs on whirring wings”. An extraordinary little creature, the red grouse. Endemic to Britain, it is the finest driven gamebird in the world, hardy, unpredictable and blissfully unaware of the astonishing amount of attention it attracts. No other animal on earth can receive the same degree of annual press coverage – both positive and negative – or…

Blackgame was once a prized quarry of the moorland edge. Fores’s sporting notes & sketches of 1898 depicts a holy grail of sporting experience: “After you have gone out and killed your 15 brace, fed under a sheltering birch tree and ‘flasked’ at the purling mountain stream, you have got right down the card, and there’s nothing left for you to do.” This probably describes the popular pursuit of shooting black grouse with a pair of guns and a couple of beaters to flush them. To achieve a larger-scale drive, flightlines to feeding grounds on stubbles or birch trees were located and the birds kept off these in the morning, so they were likely to return. Guns often had to crawl into position, find hiding places and refrain from taking…

It’s rare for members of the mounted field to ride up to the huntsman at the meet and enquire as to how many hounds are out, never mind establish whether their sport is to be provided by a bitch, dog or mixed pack. When Nigel Peel put it to his hunt committee that he wished to convert the North Cotswold hounds to an all-bitch pack a couple of months into his third season, several members pointed out that hounds had been showing fine sport and that it would be unwise to rock the boat. But they were somewhat taken aback when the MFH revealed that he had not hunted a doghound since the opening meet. “The bitches ran up together better, the sport was of a high order” Peel’s decision…

If you want to learn from the past about our country’s current affairs, you could do worse than look back to Roman Britain – a fascinating world of continually shifting power dynamics. Arguably nowhere offers better insights into this world than the Vindolanda excavation site near Hadrian’s Wall. Vindolanda (‘shining lawn’ in Celtic) was both a strategic fort and a supply base for the massive wall-building project that marked out the northern-most edge of the Roman Empire. Not only is it an exceptional place to visit today, with world-class exhibitions at both Vindolanda and its sister Roman Army Museum nearby, but also you can join in the excavations, with the prospect of unearthing startling finds. You might imagine that life for Roman soldiers stationed in north Britain, 1,100 miles from…

THE term ‘hanger’ was used from early in the 14th century and came to be applied to all short swords that could be worn comfortably for hunting or travelling. By the close of the 17th century, in Europe, firearms had supplanted the crossbow, spear and sword as the main weapon of choice for the hunt and the hanger had become a mere sidearm. However, hangers continued to remain a popular hunting accoutrement throughout the 19th century and were used in hunting ceremonies as well as for the despatching of quarry. For centuries a major part of the ritual of the hunt has been about extravagant display and with its silver hilt this type of hanger was made as a piece of luxury costume-wear for the wealthiest of clients; a show…

I’M a Southern Belle born and bred. My father was a big-game hunter and primarily found his quarry in the Rockies, Canada, and Alaska. I grew up around constant talk of his next hunt, whether it was elk, big-horned sheep, caribou or bear. He was also a keen wing shot spending time hunting quail in my native Georgia, duck in the Louisiana Bayou or walked-up pheasants in North Dakota. As an only child, our father-daughter time included weekend trips to our local outfitter, Abercrombie & Fitch, where I developed an eye for best English guns. Most American teenagers ask for a car for their 16th birthday but my request was for a beautiful Holland & Holland over-and-under 16-bore. Sadly, I didn’t get the gun but the seed was sown for…

2017 FINCA EL CUENTO BLANCO (£7 if you mix 6, Majestic) Soft, smooth, aromatic, creamy Spanish white that’s perfect for summer bashes. COTEAUX VAROIS EN PROVENCE ROSÉ NV (£9, M&S) Easy-going, bone-dry Provencal rosé that would get any summer party going, especially in the £18 magnums. 2016 CHATEAU MAYNEGRAVES (£11.75, Corney & Barrow) The gloriously soft, mellow and approachable 100% merlot claret Andrew Ross grabbed for his party. 2018 MAISON DEUXFLEURS, MÂCON-FUISSÉ ‘LES BRUYÈRES’ (£14, fromvineyardsdirect) Cracking white burgundy that would please even the most sophisticated of palates without breaking the bank. 2015 CHATEAU BEAUCHÊNE PREMIER TERROIR (£14.50, Private Cellar) A truly stunning Côtes du Rhône that Ross lapped up, stockpiling some for home consumption. LES PIONNIERS CHAMPAGNE BRUT NV (£19, Co-op) The only supermarket own-label champagne worth bothering about…

PERAZZI ANASTASIA SPARROW “I have a pair of Perazzi MX20 (20-bore) 30in shotguns with custom SC2 wood and custom stocks and fore-ends for partridge and walked-up grouse. A pair of Perazzi High Tech Elles 12-bores with 32in barrels, again with custom stocks and fore-ends, fixed choked at 3/4 and ½ for sporting clay targets and bigger game days. Lastly, I have a Perazzi MX2000/3 12-bore, 29½in, with custom adjustable stock and Perazzi multichokes for Olympic trap shooting. And lurking in the safe is my Weihrauch .22 RF bolt-action rifle for vermin control.” KRIEGHOFF HANNAH GIBSON “I have shot a Krieghoff Parcours 12-bore, 32in barrel with an adjustable stock for the past 5½ years. I use it as my clay gun but also on game; it handles so nicely on driven…

The number of ladies taking part in fieldsports is growing all the time, and they want kit and equipment that will ensure they can look good and perform well in the field. So whether you want to bust clays at a shooting school, face driven game on the moors, cast on a chalkstream, stalk in the Highlands or look good at a country fair, here’s some of the clothing and accoutrements that will help you succeed BUTLER STEWART 1 SHARP Tailoring combined with an elegant cut and attention to detail sets apart this fresh and stunning ladies’ shooting collection. Butler Stewart’s refined designs and carefully sourced British fabrics create the ultimate shooting outfit. Made in England, the range is guaranteed to keep you looking stylish while still having all the…

Leighton Hall in Lancashire, which can trace its history back to 1246, is a great example of what traditionally run estates are achieving for conservation – without resorting to ‘rewilding’. Extensive woodland management has boosted butterflies, including the rare high brown fritillary, pollination has been increased by establishing a wildflower paddock and introducing beehives, and the family-run shoot maximises conservation potential. Estate owner Lucy Arthurs runs the shoot with her husband, Danny. “Over the next three years we have decided to change all the cover crops to an organic wildbird mix or organic nectar flower mix. These types of gamecover are there to support the traditional needs of the gamekeeper to manage his birds, but can create a fantastic environment for wild birds, mammals, butterflies and pollinators throughout the year,”…

ANCIENT Land Rovers and gleaming sports cars trundled into the Yattendon estate for a charity clay shoot held in aid of PALS, a Berkshire-based charity supporting children with physical disabilities. This was the estate’s first such shoot and owners Lord Iliffe, the Hon Edward Iliffe and his wife, Teleri, cheered on the competitors. Fortified by a breakfast of pheasant sausages, 23 teams took on a challenging course designed by John Cavendish. Stand 5, the gnat stand, proved one of the most testing. “The plane’s just as fast as any gamebird,” explained Stuart Carruthers, who had brought a team, “so you have to be a least three to four metres ahead of it to stand a chance of connecting.” This went slightly awry when some sharp shooters on the teal stand…

The Golden Paste Company, which offers a range of bioavailable supplements, has developed its range alongside leading nutritionists, scientists and experts in the veterinary field. These are some of the benefits your pets and livestock could enjoy, as outlined by veterinarian and farmer Dr Doug English, BVSc: Arthritis: curcumin inhibits the breakdown of cartilage and has been shown in some studies to be as effective as hydrocortisone and phenylbutazone in relieving symptoms such as inflammation, swelling and joint stiffness, without the side effects of those drugs. It has also been shown to be safe at large doses. Blood pressure: it reduces and normalises blood pressure. Cardiovasculareffects: curcumin improves the liver’s ability to clear the body of LDL (bad cholesterol) and increases the proportion of HDL (good cholesterol). Diabetes:along with cinnamon…

During the journey between the Black Bull in Lauder and Rawburn Moor, 70-year-old Wilson Young regales me with shooting anecdotes in his soft, Border lilt and with an enthusiasm undiminished by nearly 40 years at the sharp end of a sport that is synonymous with his name in the wild and lovely Borders region. We are on our way to shoot grouse on moorland belonging to the Duke of Roxburghe but Young also rents and administers game shooting across a staggering 60,000 Border acres, which provides employment for 12 full-time gamekeepers and so much work for ancillary staff that during the shooting season he is the biggest employer in the area. His business, Eskdale Shooting Services, is now in the safe hands of Wilson Young junior. He started it in…

As we came over the brow of the hill, a covey of 10 black grouse got up perfectly on cue; within a couple of hours we saw 18 blackcock and three grey hens. “I didn’t want to guarantee it, so that was very pleasing,” said Neville Gill, owner and manager of 1,050-acre Williamston estate in Northumberland. Once widespread in England, black grouse could be found on lowland heath as far south as Hampshire. However, by 1998 there were only 773 displaying males left. These days they are confined to the uplands, where 96% of the remaining English population live on the edges of moors keepered for red grouse. So why has this red-listed species held on at Williamston? Black grouse use a range of habitats provided by moorland fringe, including…

If you are what you eat, I’m now a ‘dirty’ steak basted in a Simon & Garfunkel lyric of parsley, rosemary and thyme nestled on a bed of coals with a few whisky-smoked wood chips and looking forward to a dry rub. I am in the back garden of a cottage hidden amid the bucolic bustle of a mid-Devon hamlet. But this is no ordinary garden. The wardrobe in Marcus Bawdon’s house takes you not to Narnia but to barbecue nirvana. This is my first day at UK BBQ School; actually it’s my only day and I have signed up to the beginner’s course. Rather late in life I have decided to attempt to wrest the tongs from my Australian wife, Kelly, who won’t let a Pom near anything that…

In Brideshead Revisited, Sebastian Flyte enjoins Charles Ryder to come with him to the Oxford University Botanic Gardens “to see the ivy” – saying he doesn’t know where he’d be without the country’s oldest horticultural resource. While few of us would be plunged into such an existential crisis without regular access to a botanic garden, it’s tremendously easy to be beguiled by them – and with good reason: it would seem that they’re actively good for us, as well as being at the cutting edge of scientific research. There are roughly 60 botanical gardens in Britain today. Oxford is the oldest, opening in 1621, closely followed by the enchanting four-acre Chelsea Physic Garden in 1673. Many, though by no means all, are in urban settings, offering visitors a moment of…

THE test gun this month is a magnificent, 30in barrelled, 12-bore, pinless sidelock side-by-side pigeon gun by William & Son. It has side-clips at the breech, a concealed third bite (like some big-game double rifles), gold-line cocking indicators and an extended trigger guard meeting a steel-capped pistol grip. Profusely engraved with deep scrollwork in the firm’s house style, it hits the scales at 7lb 8oz (a good weight for a pigeon gun intended for use with heavier loads). The gun carries the substantial price tag of £105,000 (though a foreign buyer might lose £20,000 of VAT). “No shooting man, on seeing this gun, could avoid being a little excited at the prospect of using it. There were interesting features…” Initial impressions are outstanding. The gun is aesthetically beautiful – a…

I HAVE cooked for countless shoots and stalking parties at which guests stagger into the kitchen after a hearty breakfast, time running out before the gamekeeper’s and gillie’s patience expires, exclaiming that they couldn’t possible think about lunch just now. Then they see a giant glazed roast ham and somehow perk up. I love laying out a table groaning with goodies for guests to choose their pieces for the hill from. All the food has to be easily eaten without cutlery and the right size to slip into a large pocket as well as survive the journey up there. A roll may seem a simple choice but is hard to beat, especially if home-made, freshly baked and filled with something delicious such as the ginger ale ham below. Pasties or…

I DO hope the Renegade Trailhawk has a thick skin – it was attracting a fairly diverse set of comments in the week I drove it. The kindest was that it was the steroid-filled lovechild of a Jimny and a Fiat Panda. Other comments included: “funky” and “kooky”. It’s certainly not dull to the eye, with its undersized grill and oversized wheel arches, and in a market crowded with monotony that’s a good thing. Inside, the wacky theme continues, with ergonomics that suggest that the committee in charge of designing it weren’t even on the same continent, never mind round the same table. The seat seems too far back for the rear-view mirror, let alone for a quick manual de-mist of the windscreen. It’s surprisingly roomy, however – rumours of…

Horse racing is known as the sport of kings but really it should be called the sport of queens. Starting more than 300 years ago, racing in this country has been profoundly influenced by four British queens, along with a supporting cast of duchesses, ladies, millionairesses and a few overseas princesses. Today, this female aristocracy of racing has been joined by a meritocracy of women at the very top of the sport, both as jockeys and trainers, and, equally importantly, as executives, broadcasters and power brokers. In 1711, Queen Anne, who kept a large string of racehorses, was out riding on the heath at East Cote not far from Windsor Castle. She declared: “This would be a very good place for horses to gallop at full stretch.” Queen Anne’s wish…

THE sporting day ritual is not complete until a steaming hot bath has been drawn. The post-sporting soak is not mere indulgence, however, it has proven health benefits. The heat gets your blood moving, which relaxes sore muscles, improves circulation, reduces blood pressure and helps the immune system to function efficiently. Salt baths have cured ailments since Hippocrates recommended seawater for aching muscles and arthritis. “Dr Salts Eucalyptus Muscle Therapy Salts are great after a day in the field,” recommends British Open Sporting Ladies Champion Hannah Gibson. Dr Salts cultivates this product from the Dead Sea, a salt lake 10 times saltier than the ocean. The salts have soothed muscle pain for millennia. The added eucalyptus oil is a natural analgesic and anti-inflammatory. “Rosemary is used to ease strained muscles”…