Unwelcome visitors

During spring and summer, the success or failure of the shooting season to come is decided partly by nature and partly by the efforts of either the gamekeeper or the shoot owner. We are here considering only the smaller shoot where no keeper is employed and there is only the owner or tenant to perform a little amateur keepering.

Without a full-time keeper, little can be done in the way of hand-rearing, or with partridges on the Euston system, and it is best to concentrate on waging war on vermin. A few weekends devoted to clearing some of the vermin off your ground will yield surprising dividends in the form of larger bags later in the year.

Crows and magpies