No one wants a cheep shot

Among the driven shooting community there is, quite rightly, something of a stigma about putting an immature bird in the bag. There are few honest men — and honest women, of course — who can claim never to have clobbered a pheasant poult that flushed amid a covey of partridges on an early-season shoot day.

I must admit to having mistakenly committed this sin — and more than once. It’s not really excusable but, on a sunny day and on a well-stocked shoot, it’s