The best silver lining

Shooting under the moon has a fascination all of its own, for under its silvery light the well-known country becomes strange and mysterious, and somehow remote. After October, I have often gone out to walk the drains and pools for duck and, provided there is a sufficiency of fleecy white cloud, against which the rising bird can be seen, sport can be good.

I remember one night in particular. It was early November and for a week or so there had been heavy skies and rain, but the weather had cleared and the full moon rose, with large masses of fleecy cloud that shone silver in the moonlight. I had some shooting which compromised a low spur of arable land which pushed out into the river valley, down each side of which were the low-lying