I've seen buzzards take healthy adult hens (close enough to exclude any possibility of being mistaken), but not witnessed them attempt an adult cock.
No foxes shot and record season
- Thread starter mudman
- Start date
In my opiniom, effective predator control and licensing are incompatible. Predator control is te consuming and expensive. If you're expecting people of a type usually not keen or experienced in admin to engage in extra red tape to be allowed to do an onerous chore, all you end up with is bad outcomes.
HistoricBore
Well-Known Member
In our case we have had a poor year, with a 14% return. Foxes are around but not a huge problem. There are two pairs of goshawks, which are a problem, plus some badgers in the sandy soil bits.
We did not get our pheasant poults until mid-August instead of mid-July, which I suspect is the real issue.
HB
Bo Diddley
Well-Known Member
I've watched the buggers hopping around the ground in the pen nailing the poults, pheasants are stupid when they are adults... and really really stupid when they are young...
Smellydog
Well-Known Member
I have. Took some doing but it did it.
Numbers shot on a shoot can vary greatly due to the countless variables, most of which are out of the keeper's control. The same shoot can produce excellent results as in the OPs case one year, and be totally different the following season. If you get everything right, good guns, good weather, a keeper who knows his stuff, good beaters, perhaps a neighbouring shoot who puts down a fair number of birds, cooperative birds, the list is endless, but all have an impact on the end-of-season figures.
If your fox /buzzard/goshawk population is low then you won't have too many problems getting good returns, if not you will have. My opinion on foxes is that if you only have one or two in the area you won't have too many problems. However, foxes tend to have family groups and a healthy fox population is the last thing you want on your shoot.
If your fox /buzzard/goshawk population is low then you won't have too many problems getting good returns, if not you will have. My opinion on foxes is that if you only have one or two in the area you won't have too many problems. However, foxes tend to have family groups and a healthy fox population is the last thing you want on your shoot.
countrryboy
Well-Known Member
When i 1st joined and later took over the shoot losses to BoP were quite high.
5-10 a day was quite common for a good few weeks.
Thats u losing a shoot day bag every 3-7days.
In hind sight was a badly designed pen, all tall sitka spruce with only light at front edge.
Buzzards would hammer them in front and sparrows would take them in the wood as had been 1sy thinned.
When they felled the wood was best thing to happem.
New pens had more short/low cover amd light scattered all throu.
Losses went to almost zero and like that for years after.
I also hung kiddies hologram windmill thingys up, i thought reflected better than ur standard cds.
I also planted willow whips in straight lines in the sunny places when they got 4 or 5ft tall bent them over and stuck tops in the ground.
U ended up with we arches birds could get in below for cover or climb about on top for sun.
I did have problems with a goshawk, fortunantley only in 1 cracking pen, ended up abandoning the pen after 2 yrs of bother, losses were just too high.
Not wot was killed but wot was stressed and put over the wire and too scared to come back.
Had similar on a different syndicate im now involved with.
Managed to fence some of pen off and roof net it.
Wot a difference it made.
Birds held really well and stress free.
5-10 a day was quite common for a good few weeks.
Thats u losing a shoot day bag every 3-7days.
In hind sight was a badly designed pen, all tall sitka spruce with only light at front edge.
Buzzards would hammer them in front and sparrows would take them in the wood as had been 1sy thinned.
When they felled the wood was best thing to happem.
New pens had more short/low cover amd light scattered all throu.
Losses went to almost zero and like that for years after.
I also hung kiddies hologram windmill thingys up, i thought reflected better than ur standard cds.
I also planted willow whips in straight lines in the sunny places when they got 4 or 5ft tall bent them over and stuck tops in the ground.
U ended up with we arches birds could get in below for cover or climb about on top for sun.
I did have problems with a goshawk, fortunantley only in 1 cracking pen, ended up abandoning the pen after 2 yrs of bother, losses were just too high.
Not wot was killed but wot was stressed and put over the wire and too scared to come back.
Had similar on a different syndicate im now involved with.
Managed to fence some of pen off and roof net it.
Wot a difference it made.
Birds held really well and stress free.
countrryboy
Well-Known Member
Aye to be honest in an ideal world it would be more like some sort of quota system.
But not for wot ur allowed to cull but wot has to be on ur ground.
Really not that different to how grouse moors are ran.
Number off shoot days and bag sizes depends entirely on the grouse counts if the grouse numbers can stand it as u still need to leave ur breeding population.
I honestly do think nowadays most keepers would behave responsably and not absolutely hammer them the way they might off in the past.
The mentality has changed a lot in last few decades
In various states in america for shooting wildfowl/geese they work on a quota system.
So any bag limits or bans depends entirely on how many migratory birds turn up that year.
No one wants to see any animal or birds exterminated.
But equally 100+ red kites turning up at feed stations isnae healthy either.
Ideally u could control problem animals as u want but if u ever got a visit u'd still have to have a healthy populations.
Really all irrelevant as it would never ever happen nowadays the way politics is going.
A truely sensible un emotive debate on the effects of pradation will never happen now, social media has seen to that.
And even if it was considered wot is considered a healthy population would take a bit of negotation to get levels correct.
I see a scottish wildlife study dared to suggest cats may be a problem but very quickly buried by the politicains.
Despite the fact inbreeding with domestic cats is the major problem for the scottish wildcat.
I forget the number of birds and mammals they said were killed by cats anually but it was absolutely massive, i almost fell of my seat when i heard it on the radio at lunch time.
Same with the hedgehog charties scared to really mention just how bad badgers are for hedgehogs.
And the cull has been ideal as very rare ud get permission to remove a protected predator even for a scientific study.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
One nice thing about ev cars is cats cant hear them coming!
I have seen a buzzard wait above a feeder and then drop onto and kill an adult cock pheasant. Buzzards will kill some pheasants and partridges, and they cause disturbance to all of the others. If you disturb them regularly early in the day then they tend to desert the area quite quickly.
Foxes though will kill in very large numbers if they get the chance. A lot of poults when they are very young will fly out of the pen at first light, and then sit on the ground for a while, especially if the grass is long. They are very vulnerable at this stage, and a fox may kill 30 or 40 a day for a period of several days. It is principally for this reason that fox control is required on a pheasant shoot.
Foxes though will kill in very large numbers if they get the chance. A lot of poults when they are very young will fly out of the pen at first light, and then sit on the ground for a while, especially if the grass is long. They are very vulnerable at this stage, and a fox may kill 30 or 40 a day for a period of several days. It is principally for this reason that fox control is required on a pheasant shoot.
Thermal has now shown us that this idea of dominance is simply not true
The smaller the number of birds put down the less the return percentage tells you as valuable data because you get closer to the normal holding number of a lump of ground.
When you put small numbers down and also want to know some meaningful data it's a great idea to ring your birds. It's very doable with small numbers.
When you put small numbers down and also want to know some meaningful data it's a great idea to ring your birds. It's very doable with small numbers.
Its far far more complicated than that really though
Things like - quality and efforts of beaters and pickers up come in to play - disturbance from people - proximity of others shoots
Buzzards are opportunists where Goshawks can and will fly down its quarry if you get pheasants in a pen buzzards can just drop out of a tree or fence post i lose more poults and adult birds to BOP than i do to foxes it is easy to tell between a Fox kill and a BOP kill you can tell if a BOP had made the kill and then a fox come along and take the carcass
georgedoubleyou
Well-Known Member
I remember being sat in the truck with my dad when I was young and we watched a buzzard flying over a block of maize to have a good look and the partridges erupted as if you had a team of 10 beaters pushing it through. I can't say I've ever personally seen the act of a buzzard killing pheasants/partridges, but I've certainly seen the disturbance they cause which is arguably just as much of a problem for a keeper as predation.
I have one crapping over my front lawn, might consider trapping it for a holiday up the road.
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