A farewell to foul February

LAURENCE CATLOW, A PASSIONATE SHOOTER AND ANGLER FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS, HAS WRITTEN FIVE BOOKS ABOUT SPORT WITH ROD AND GUN.

can remember telling you last year how much I like February, a month that fairly consistently gets a rotten press. Almost certainly I mentioned the sight and sound of returning curlew; I probably told you how, sometime in February, lapwings begin to tumble through the sky again over my rough pastures; doubtless I praised February for the gradual revival of birdsong, for the first shy primroses just beginning to show themselves on some sheltered slopes of the big wood and,