Right in the thick of it

Cumulus clouds did mighty battle overhead, rafting and piling themselves into stacks and snakes, riptides and rushes, like smoke streaming from onrushing steam trains. Beyond them, the ice-blue skies were winter’s last gasps.

Wheatears sought respite from the storms, facing north like compass needles. Shots from near the release pen, from the woods and from the farmyard were blown across the marshes and far out to sea. It was a glorious, angry day for a team effort at corvid control.

“Rooks swirled like starlings, jackdaws and crows lifted”

Enough Guns to ambush 15 game covers had been assembled to do battle with crows. I was one of the fortunate team. When all the maize on a sprawling estate such as Liam Fearis’s Old Church Shoot in Essex is cut at once, a