Hunting (part 3)

The fields on my St Just shoot are looking empty, but as i said in another part of my blog, there are a lot of milky doe's (don't be tempted to shoot them) and as you see in this photograph, it is littered with pigeons. I walked up this field and as suspected, racing pigeons. You don't want to be shooting these birds, they are someones pets and lets face it i wouldn't like it if someone killed my pet, would you. Be very observant when shooting pigeons, look at there legs. If there have rings on them or you can get very close to them, leave them.

By this stream in the summer it is over grown by Japanese Knot Weed, a real pain but this time of the year its died off and in a few months will be over run with rabbits and if you own a shotgun or a 410, you will find the odd Snipe or three.

This small cops makes a great place in the summer months for woodies and Snipe. There is something quite enchanting about the silence of woods in the winter. Behind the tin hut is a great place for a natural hide and coming towards the end of the summer if you have the equipment, it is a good place to go lamping in the field just behind but there are a few badgers i have to share it with.

In the height of the summer, this is my favourite natural hide. It is situated at the other end of the cops in the picture above and leads right over a few field were we have a new strain of rabbit. We already have a strain of black bunnies which stick to another field just a mile away, but just to the left of this hide i spotted a white rabbit no more than 10 yards away.

A cheeky Squirrel, the first one i have ever seen on my St Just shoot sits looking directly at me. With my rifle over my shoulder and camera in my hand i thought a photograph rather than shooting it. Hopefully i will see more in the next couple of years, we will see.

This field in the summer is full of bunnies but a lone rabbit sits with clumps of fur missing. It is Normal for the doe's to pull clumps of fur out at this time of the year to line her nest for the first batch of young.

Always the same. Not many rabbits but at the top of the field a fox sits and waits, you can almost guarantee there will be another close by. I have noticed in the last two years on my St Just shoot especially, the fox population has risen by 70%. I have done a few dawn shoots and have spotted more fox than rabbits which is a bit of a pain for me.