Shooting Times & Country 15-Dec-2021

What I would say, for those of you who are thinking of making rabbit arancini, is that by all means do it but recognise what you’re getting into. I’ve lost sleep, I’ve burned myself and I’ve had moments of great despair. The rabbits were shot on Monday when I was out ferreting with Simon Whitehead and the canapés — they are to be little rabbit arancini balls — are for a party this evening. I must confess, I’m largely making them because of how much I like them — that mixture of grease, cheese and spicy tomato dipping sauce is everything food should be, but at the same time, I do hope the offering will have some lasting impact. There will be 25 people at the party I’m cooking for, some vegan,…

A university farm where a shooting lease was controversially cancelled after a campaign by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) looks set to become part of a multimillion-pound housebuilding scheme. Hall Farm in Arborfield, Berkshire, hosts the University of Reading’s Centre for Dairy Research. It also sits in a prime development site in the Loddon Valley immediately to the south of Reading and to the west of Wokingham. The site is bounded to the north by the M4, giving good access to Slough and on into central London. The university has ‘welcomed’ a new development plan that would create a ‘garden village’ on the site. Shooting on the farm was leased to a local syndicate; however, a campaign by the LACS targeted the university, with misleading claims including that “large numbers of…

A huge area of German farmland will be taken out of production in an effort to stem ground-nesting bird declines and particularly to help save the country’s rapidly vanishing grey partridge population. German farmers will now be required to leave 4% of their farm’s area as ‘set-aside’ — land that is not farmed — if they want to claim subsidies under the EU common agricultural policy. It is hoped that this will boost nesting and feeding sites for ground-nesting birds. Any mowing of set-aside land will now also be delayed until 15 August instead of the current date of 15 June. Grey partridges have been in catastrophic decline in Germany, with a 90% population loss in the past 30 years. A study that took place in Lower Saxony in 2016 blamed the…

Farmers and gardeners have not traditionally been keen advocates of rabbit conservation; however, they are being asked to build ‘rabbit hotels’ to help declining populations. Rabbits became a serious agricultural pest in the UK when the warrens where they were kept were abandoned and the animals began to spread. The arrival of myxomatosis in the UK in the early 1950s brought about a crash in the rabbit population. A second catastrophic crash came with the arrival of rabbit haemorrhagic disease, which happened just as the animals approached herd immunity to myxomatosis. Among the areas affected by the population crash was the heathland of the Brecks on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. In the Brecks, grazing by rabbits was an important factor in creating habitats for insects such as the wormwood moonshiner,…

SHOOT A sky full of scudding clouds, a sea of crashing surf and a flight of ducks on the wing — what could be better or wilder than an evening fowling on the shore? Add in that wildfowlers are telling us that this is one of the best seasons they have ever enjoyed and now is the time to see if you can bag a goose or duck from below the tideline. SHOOT The winter migrants have poured in over the past few weeks, and shooting small bags of migratory woodcock is one of the most sustainable forms of shooting. The hardened woodcock Shot may enjoy using pointers, but any cocker spaniel worth its salt should be able to provide a very enjoyable walked-up woodcock shoot.…

Gamekeepers came to the rescue again as Storm Arwen wreaked havoc across eastern and north-east Scotland. The storm, which brought gusts of more than 100mph, felled trees, tore down power lines, ripped the roofs off buildings and claimed three lives. In Northumberland, which was hit by exceptionally strong gales, entire woods were flattened, and Shooting Times is aware of at least one shoot that had all its woodland destroyed by Arwen’s fury. The east coast of Scotland was hardest hit. In Grampian — where a highly unusual red weather warning was issued — gamekeepers risked their lives to protect others. As the storm was building towards its peak, keepers from Edinglassie and Lynebain scrambled to clear fallen trees from the A920 between Huntly and Dufftown. The heroic team managed to get the road…