The conditions were great for an afternoon’s pigeon flighting. We decided to hop into photographer Oli Lees’s pickup as I had chosen to flight the birds, which meant, with the location, I only needed a gun and some cartridges. Flighting is the purest form of pigeon shooting: there’s no fancy equipment. All you need is fieldcraft and good reconnaissance.
We turned into the field off a country lane and followed a dog-leg round to the margins, where there was space for us to drive without disturbing anything. There appeared to be a few tractor ruts but, with my classic optimism, I told Oli his truck would be fine. In a matter of seconds we slid off the track and straight into a deep trench. I knew straight away that we were stuck. Oli’s ‘shoes’ were not good enough to get us out of
