Essential cold weather kit

 
No.1: Peacock 'Giant' handwarmer. It's stainless steel and runs on lighter fuel (not so easy to find nowadays, to prevent chavs drinking the stuff, or maybe it was to prevent terrorists using it to blow up planes. I forget. Anyhow, shops un-PC enough to still stock tobacco generally have it hidden under the counter). Fill it up, clip the wick in place and fire it up with an ordinary lighter. There's no flame, just a gentle red glow from the platinum catalyst in the wick. Hey presto, a warm glow in your pocket which lasts at least 36 hours (24 in the standard sized version).

No.2: Stainless steel flask filled with sloe gin. I got this one on eBay for about a fiver. If you aren't such a cheapskate as I am, Purdey's have a nice one at £260. Fill it with home-made sloe gin. Mine was made by Harriet, our sub-editor (must ask her which recipe she used) and bottled in a splendid old-fashioned flip-top bottle with labels she designed herself too (see below). If you didn't get round to making your own this year, Gordons make an acceptable version, £16 at Tesco's. Hey presto, a warm glow inside that lasts well into the next drive.

Last night I was mostly rebuilding a helicopter

My daughter gave it to me for Christmas, and by lunchtime on Christmas Day I had ham-fistedly flown it into a tree - causing all sorts of structural and mechanical damage.

I scoured eBay for the spares (2 main drive shafts and the bodyshell) and they arrived yesterday, so last night I spent several hours working with glue, solder and some very fiddly screws.

Cue fanfare, drum roll, guitar riff, or perhaps Ride of the Valkyries...

Now, I must remember to take this whole learning to fly thing one step at a time...

Nice idea, more work needed

Wouldn't it be interesting to rig up a video camera looking straight down the gun barrels, so you could see how the gun tracks the bird, maybe even follow the shot pattern and see the lead required to hit a driven pheasant?

That's what I thought, so last night I spent some time destroying one of my favourite Musto caps in order to fit a lightweight video camera to the peak. And today I wore it on a couple of drives to see how it would work out.

And the results... not quite what I'd intended. First the cap fell off as I swung on an overhead bird...

Then it fell off again...

And finally I took a beautiful right-and-left (or under-and-over in fact), only to discover that the camera wasn't aligned with the barrels at all, and I was actually filming the breech end of the barrels.

Ah well, back to the drawing board (and probably taking a knife to another Musto cap). Still, it was a beautiful day to be out, I shot a couple of brace and I won the sweep, so I'm not complaining!

 

 

Don't get mad...

...get even. Some little scrote got a catapult for Christmas - and is now driving round the neighbourhood in the early hours of the morning firing stones through people's car windscreens.

Along with several of our neighbours, my wife's car had its rear screen shot through last night. Autoglass - the people who offer a 24/7 emergency service - can't possibly do anything about it until Tuesday. And Tesco insurance, who are never backwards in upping the premium, cheerfully inform us that there will be a £75 excess to pay - after half an hour hanging on the 0845 line being reminded how very important our call is to them.

The cops were more interested in any possible racial implications - what colour were we, did we think there might be a racial motive. Still, they filled in the forms very comprehensively with my wife's job title and date of birth. Cos that'll help. And our details will be passed to Victim Support. I expect they'll write her a nice letter. If only they put that much effort into patrolling the streets...

Anyhow, in the absence of any constructive help from the people funded by my taxes, I thought perhaps I could apply a bit of specialist shooting knowledge to the problem. After all, a couple of lowlifes in a hot hatch can't be so different from a marauding fox.

Don't panic, I'm not reaching for the .243, tempting though it might be. But I have set up the Deben ProStalk trail camera overlooking the front of the house.

And I'm wondering where best to wait up - in the bedroom overlooking the street (where it will be nice and warm), or in a vehicle down the road, where I'll get a better view of their numberplate.

Lovely day for it!

Lovely day for it!, originally uploaded by Nico.....

I love this pic by Nico Morgan (found on his Flickr pages) - it pretty much sums up this shooting season for me!

Cold weather: shooting ban in Scotland

Christmas Day, originally uploaded by nz_willowherb.

With continuing harsh weather, BASC is calling for all shooters in Scotland to exercise 'extra voluntary restraint' in their shooting of ducks, geese and waders including woodcock, snipe and reared mallard.

If the weather conditions persist until the New Year in Scotland then it is possible that a decision will be taken by the Government to impose a statutory suspension of waterfowl shooting which would last for up to 14 days.

All of which means that my planned wildfowling trip to NE Scotland in the new year is looking less and less likely to happen. Which will be bad news for the local pigeons and foxes.

UPDATE, Thurs 31 Dec: 

Today (31 Dec) was day 11 in the countdown to a severe weather suspension of the shooting of ducks, geese and waders in Scotland. The hard weather is expected to persist and if it does the Minister will sign the Order on Saturday 2 Jan, coming into effect on Monday the 4 Jan at 09.00.
The ban will affect the shooting of all ducks (including reared ducks), geese and waders (including snipe and woodcock) and will be signed for 14 days. However, there will be a review after 7 days and if mild weather has arrived it could then be lifted.

UPDATE, Sun 3 Jan: 

Today the environment minister Roseanna Cunningham signed the order, which brings a suspension into force on Tuesday 5 Januar. The suspension last up to two weeks, but is reviewed after seven days if conditions have improved.

This is the first cold weather suspension since January 1997, when the order covered the whole of Great Britain. The last time such a ban was enforced in Scotland alone was in 1993.

More details on the BASC website here »

Cute puppy photos

 

 

I've been making the most of the sunshine, and a couple of spare hours, to shoot some of the obligatory cute puppy photos. Bracken is 12 weeks now, and if I don't get on with it she'll be a big hulking brute and I'll have missed the chance! More photos in my collection on Flickr here...