AUTUMN GLORY

Autumn is a wonderful season for the air-rifle hunter. Nature’s harvest is at its most bountiful at this time of year and there are usually good opportunities for making mixed bags as quarry species take advantage of the glut in preparation for tougher times ahead.

Another nice thing about the autumn months is the shortening days. Back in the long days of summer, there was the potential for many hours of inactivity between the prime times of dawn and dusk, but now that diurnal wildlife has less daylight by which to forage, you can expect to encounter quarry at more or less any time of day. And even if you do want to hang on until nightfall, you’ll still be able to get home at a much more civilised time than a few months ago when darkness wasn’t closing in until after 10pm.

Today, I am out on one of my woodland shoots. This estate is managed for forestry, conservation and as a pheasant shoot. Grey squirrels cause major problems for all of the aforementioned land uses – by barkstripping trees, preying on