Recent content by Basil H

Most Chessies are bigger than the average lab, but not all - my best bitch was a compact little thing. There is an club, which is easy to find online. However, this is a very different breed and can be challenging but rewarding to train. I have had several over the last 40 years although...

Plenty of people feed them and DO exploit them - there's the rub.

Herring Gull is, surprisingly, red-listed as a species in serious decline. Some years ago we used to destroy the eggs of Herring and Lesser Black-backed to protect terns etc. on a coastal reserve. The nests are virtually identical. Eventually Natural England (who had been all in favour) had to...

"gulls" eh ? There are about two dozen species on the U.K.list.

Check out the proposed responses being suggested by Mark Avery (google mark avery blog) who is ex- Conservation Director at RSPB and a member of the Wild Justice team. Parakeets are the least of our worries. Legislation in the U.K. is all-or-nothing, never flexible or adaptive, and does not...

This thread was dead and buried nearly fifteen years ago. It wasn't worth resurrecting.

Mary-Ann Ochota has produced some really interesting stuff over the years. Her Britain Afloat series on traditional craft covered from coracles to sailing barges with even a bit on gunning punts.

We have been hearing for years about considering populations at flyway level, about "adaptive harvest management" and so on. Our migratory waterfowl come from all across the north - Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, Novaya Zemlaya and the river valleys such as the Yenesei and Ob. Yet the reality is...

Not sure if this the place, but some members may wish to know that the well-known artist - and master puntgunner - Julian Novorol passed away a few days ago.

On this topic, how is it legal for the staghound packs to use a shotgun rather than an appropriate rifle to dispatch deer they have run to a standstill ?

No.

I had this operation on Thursday. The aftermath is.......challenging. The experiences described here are interesting and supportive. Thanks.

This has been covered already (Other Shooting and Keepering). If you think that anyone who shoots a bird in the Anseriformes is a wildfowler then you really have no idea.

A goose with the usable meat removed is still an awfully big lump to dispose off, not that this is an excuse. What I don't understand is why the perpetrator didn't at least drive 10 minutes out into the fen and dump them more discreetly in a dyke bottom if he had to. These incidents were...

This advertising feature - or one very similar - has been popping up on U.K. newspaper websites for weeks. Hard to see why.