With that signature sound of the flap of a wing as a bird breaks cover, the eye catches a mottled-brown blur moving at speed. The situation registers instantly, the gun is up and shot fired as an automatic yet calculated action. The woodcock tumbles, struck hard by No 8 from the barrel of Beretta. Springer spaniels are on the scene, nose to the ground, gulping in all that information from the scent, eager for the retrieve.
It is a good start to the day. The dogs, a motley crew of springers and pointers, work the woodland margins of the bog. The pointers are a few tree rows in, while my springers, Ben and Pepper the pup, are working the heavier cover on the woodland’s edge. It is Ben who puts this first woodcock up and he is
