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The Woodcock club has been going for years. Personally I will never shoot one, I had one fly straight at me last shoot of the season, I just marvelled at the colours as they are quite vivid in flight. Equally, I will not shoot Snipe. I also avoid English Partridges. I spotted some Golden Plover yesterday, they are also game birds however again I have not, and never will shoot them.

The thing is, we all hold different views and goals when it comes to game shooting. I have shot alongside superb guns who have passed their gun to the stuffer as they feel they have had their fair share for the day, others will keep going until the whistle and then off down the pub without even a single brace. I reckon the Viking was breasting out game birds virtually every day of the last week or so of the season and I am working my way through them :)

Soon need a license to swat flies...

Mike95

Hope the lead doesn't get you.............

Pete

MistAgain wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ckham.html

That's better :)

[quote="Ovenpaa"]The Woodcock club has been going for years.

/quote]


So has the deline in the distribution and abundance of the species.

MistAgain wrote:I lost count of the number of Ministries that would be created .

Agreed, many of which with overlapping remits that would undoubtedly get into absurd turf wars over who has responsibility! It is a charter for costly bureaucratic chaos!

How in the name of Zardoz do they propose to enforce the rule requiring all new garden fences to have Hedgehog holes for example?!

It also barely seems to understand that a large number of the proposed ministries would need to be duplicated in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at even more cost and bureaucracy as they are devolved responsibilities!

It is indeed a Zealots charter!

Plecotus wrote:So has the deline in the distribution and abundance of the species.

Markedly so and not just the Woodcock, there are certainly UK species of birds higher up on the list than the Woodcock. Lapwings are in serious decline and they are not even being shot at, having said that modern farming methods are not helping nor are land based predators, although I did see a significant flock of lapwings fly over just to the south east of Louth a few weeks ago, we all agreed we had never seen so many Lapwings in the air at one time. Sparrows and even Starlings are all suffering and that is before even considering UK mammals.

At the other end of the scale there has been a huge increase in the numbers of Buzzards and Red Tailed Kites over the last few years. Personally I like to see Buzzards on the wing or in the case of around here, usually sitting on the top of a hedgerow. I am not so keen on Kites. Regardless of what people say about Fox or Badger, numbers are on the increase. We stood on the edge of a field the day the Lapwings came over and the person with us pointed out the locations of 11 Badger sets within sight of eye.

Curlews, I see them maybe only 2-3 times a month now, in fact I see more Marsh Harriers than Curlews. I could go on....

Ovenpaa wrote:Sparrows and even Starlings are all suffering and that is before even considering UK mammals.

Back when I was growing up here in the West London suburbs in the 60's and 70's, our garden used to full of sparrows, finches, starlings and blackbirds, and of course pigeons.
Pretty much completely disappeared now.
Only birds seen now in the area in any mass are pigeons, magpie's, gulls and crows.

Ovenpaa wrote: At the other end of the scale there has been a huge increase in the numbers of Buzzards and Red Tailed Kites over the last few years.

That has been very noticeable.

If you get a corncrake on your ground you can retire on the subsidies.

Ovenpaa wrote:The Woodcock club has been going for years. Personally I will never shoot one, I had one fly straight at me last shoot of the season, I just marvelled at the colours as they are quite vivid in flight. Equally, I will not shoot Snipe.

A couple of years ago I saw two snipe take off from the marshy pond in front of the mantlet on Century range at Bisley.