Malinger nolonger

To the eternal gratitude of my wife, I returned to work today. I've been feeling well enough for a few looong days now but have-for once-been following advice and not rushed things.

At home my boots are all dried and dubbined; my guns are cleaned and oiled; you could perform surgery in the antiseptic cleanliness that is my workshop; and I have enough bullet cases prepped that, had I the powder to reload them, I could have backed a medium-sized coup d'etat.

Hell, I even tracked down a camera on ebay with more than the few dozen pixels I've been treating you to up 'til now. Yup, things were getting pretty desperate.

So I returned to work just raring to go. I haven't rared since early September and, boy, it felt good.

It felt good right up until the first hill whereupon I found that my legs had been replaced with two strands of boiled spaghetti. Holy Cow! but I've lost some fitness. It didn't help that I was with all my colleagues and they were blithley marching off over the skyline. What could I do? (I stopped and took a pic with my new camera, that's what.)

And the reason for us all taking to the hills en masse? Well, basically, we're so far behind with our hind cull, and we're seeing so many deer (especially on my beat, wouldn't you know it) that we're resorting to doing some deer drives.

A deer drive involves trying to encircle a herd of deer with shooters then keeping them within the circle until you've culled a reasonable number.

Before you throw up your hands in horror let me say that, although it sounds like slaughter, a drive only very, very rarely produces a big number. In practice, the shooters are hundreds of yards apart, with hollows and bits of dead ground that the deer always seem to find. We never shoot moving deer and never shoot if an animal has another standing behind it (the bullets go right through y'see). What this means is that, for a frustratingly large percentage of the time, a herd of 100+ (+!) animals can get past without you being able to get a single shot. And when we do get a shot, we're still trying to be as selective as we can.

Today, for example, we had a team of 6 rifles and 4 ghillies mobilised and ended up shooting 18 beasts. Out of around 250 that were in our 'net'. It's probably no more than we would have culled had we all gone out on our different beats but at least they were taken from an area where the numbers are in danger of becoming problematic.

I confess I thought long and hard before mentioning driving deer on this blog, but at the end of the day, I see it as a necessary evil. When a neighbouring estate put a fence up and 'excluded' deer from its ground, we inherited them. And if we don't get the numbers down to sustainable levels they'll end up dying anyway, but not before they've decimated their habitat. I've seen this happen to a lesser degree, and- I promise you- it ain't pretty.

Thus endeth the sermon for today. Now I'm off to soak in a hot bath; if I can make it up the stairs.

Cabin fever

I took a wee tour about today just to get out of the house -and took a few pics. The probability is, that if you're anywhere in the uk, you are sick of the sight of snow. But here's a few shots of ours, anyway.

By the way, the farmer who lives up the track in the middle pic invites you all to tea- just be sure and bring a shovel.

Talking of food, I can see this winter really starting to have effect on some of our smaller animals. The rabbits are reduced to eating sprots (those ubiquitous thin, waxy rushes) and the bark off any small trees and branches they can reach. Our bird feeders are swarming from first light 'til dark and I found a dead Great Tit deep in the logpile today; frozen solid.

And there's a lot more winter to come.

Stir crazy after all these years.....

Snow. Doesn't it make you come over all Bing Crosby? It seems like my last blog was taken as some sort of challenge by Mother Nature. Bless her natural cotton socks, she's gifted us plenty of the stuff.

When I first came into 'keepering I was a very keen skier and relished the prospect of a long hard winter. And my colleagues would tell me I could take my long hard winter and stick it up my ski pass. But times have changed, and so has the climate.

For a lot of years we haven't had the snow and ice that we used to and it now appears that this doesn't suit the grouse like you would think it might. Rather it seems that mild winters don't kill off harmful parasites like tick and the trichostrongyl worm and this has had a big impact on Scottish moors over much of the Nineties and Noughties. Ours included.

So now we welcome conditions like we've been having for the last 3/4 weeks- with reservations. As I write, we have 11" of snow 'at the door' and -15 C registered on the max/min thermometer. This has all sorts of repercussions for us.

On the downside, every task we perform requires much more effort. Whether it be walking; digging out shed doors, or gates, or vehicles; gritting tracks (by hand); keeping animals supplied with food and- in particular- water; or whatever.

Yes, as far as stalking goes, the snow pushes the deer onto the very lowest, most accessible ground. But it also fills all the dips and hollows you would use for cover and furthermore makes you stick out like a sore thumb at far greater distances, whitesuits or not. As a stalking friend of mine put it "there are no shortcuts in the snow". And when you're plunging in up to you knees at each step, that's a right bugger!

Extraction can also be a problem. Usually because the landrover is stopped in its (filled) tracks at the very first incline but also because you dont want to be taking the ponies anywhere that you're unsure of; the snow can hide ditches, bogs and sheets of ice. (And, incidentally, I have an inbuilt guidance system that takes me unerringly into all 3 when I walk the hill.)

I paint a black picture for a snowscape but a fall has it's upsides too. First and foremost, it allows us to catch up with foxes, either through tracking or stalking.

For tracking you ideally want a fall of snow that lets up not long before daylight. This should (in itallics!) mean any tracks you come across are really fresh and you wont be following a 'spoor' for 15 miles. When you catch up, he/she might be out in the open and therefore require a careful stalk or, alternatively, he/she may have dug into a hole or cairn in which case you'd better have a terrier with you. If you dont, you have the choice of going a long way home to fetch one, or a long cold stake-out which will probably see hypothermia or frostbite appear before the fox does.

With regard to stalking, there are 3 factors working in our favour (and it's not often a 'keeper can say that!). Firstly, you can spot a fox at a huge distance on a pure white backdrop. Secondly, they are far more active in the daylight at this time of year due to the approach of their mating season (usually the end of January). Finally, most of their lying-up spots are blocked up with snow. (If there has been a decent fall and a bit of drifting, hundreds of acres of hide-a-bus peat hags can be turned into a featureless white plain. Very disorientating it is too.) Anyway, once you've spotted your fox all you have to do is go and shoot him. Ahem.

But what I say about spotting foxes applies to everything. Total snow cover is a great opportunity to get accurate deer counts done, to get a rough idea of your grouse stocks, to see what you have in the way of corvids going about and to get an idea of which areas stoats, weasels and rats are favouring (these through seeing the tracks).

I love conditions like these and would be waxing up my cross-country skis right now except for just one small detail; I might just have pneumonia. Daytime TV, anyone?

I've decided to give up keepering and take up entymology instead. I managed to pick up another bug a few days ago- the Noro Virus this time- and it's been a real healthy specimen. Which is more than can be said for me.

What this means is that I've had fewer adventures on the hill to tell you about. So what has been happening?

Just a few days after my last blog I shot ANOTHER hind with 'carbuncles'. She was a yearling and the reason I'd selected her was that she had a broken foreleg. The growths weren't as extensive as on the first hind but still way more than I've come across previously. I wonder if it's anything to do with the fact that she'll have been lying up a lot with her injury. I did take photos but they make it look like I was out stalking in a London Pea-Souper. With the way that the weather has taken a turn for the colder, I suspect I'm going to have a lot more trouble with lenses misting up.

And talking of which, the TV news has been full of stories of mayhem and carnage as Britain enters it's next ice-age. Maybe we've been missing out up in this neck of the woods (we've 2"-3" snow) but it all appears to be rather exaggerated. Correct me if I'm wrong.

But on the estate now, we're winding down for Christmas. The hill ponies are all back from their outposts on the various beats. The farrier is up today and they are all being reshod. Any hinds shot today will have to be 'handy' ones- and I use that term in it's very loosest sense-that can be dragged to a land-rover or boated across the loch.

Other than that, pheasant feeders will be topped up and land-rovers cleared out prior to tomorrows shoot. This is a little rough shoot we have to ourselves once a year, but it still requires a bit of planning and organising.

And that's about it. I have to say I'm REALLY looking forward to resting up for a few days. It feels like it's been an almighty struggle this season and our cull numbers back this up. Normally 3 of our beats aim to have 100 hinds each by Christmas but it just hasn't happened. We'll just have to hope that this snow sticks around for a while and we get the benefit of it once we're back to the cull in the new year.

Before I go, I'd just like to thank those of you who left comments. Your messages of encouragement were a much-needed tonic.

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas.

Nippit

Over the last few days we've had clear skies. Night-time temperatures have dipped to a cool -7 Celcius and the days have been brilliant and crisp. That description might also have applied to the washing on our line, though a metaphor involving armour-plating would maybe be more appropriate, if I could only think of one.

The photos I've (hopefully) posted with this blog show a beast that I shot last Friday. I had stalked into a group of about 100 animals and was sorting through them when I noticed a large yeld hind with a 'protuberance' on her belly. From that distance, and the fact it was shaded, it looked for all the world like she had some of her guts hanging out. (Although she did seem remarkable calm about it. Certainly more calm than I would have been!) Anyway, it was that that put her top of my 'hit list'.

When the smoke cleared and I walked up to her I was surprised to see that it wasn't her guts hanging out but this large area of...er...carbuncles (for want of a better word.) It has to be said that it's not terribly unusual to see one or two of these things on an animal but never so many or so big.

I had to skin that area of her belly to gralloch her and found nothing unusual under her skin except a slighly enhanced blood supply. Furthermore there was nothing out of the ordinary with any of her lymph nodes or internal organs. In fact, she was in really good shape- apart from being dead.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has come across this condition, or what causes it. And, yes, I realise that one of my pics makes her look remarkably like a kangaroo!

Looking for signs of life.....

I must confess I'm starting to loose faith a bit here. I've no idea if anybody reads these ramblings other than my parents. Please leave a comment- abuse if you like- but SOMETHING to let me know that I'm not totally wasting my time here.

Oh, and hi Mum.

What a drag!

The sun shone today. So- after phoning Sky News- I took some photos as evidence. You can see there is a fair amount of snow on the far tops. (Earlier this week we had it right down to the bottoms of the glens. 'Orrible wet stuff it was but it did make belly-crawling on grassy slopes a doddle- unless you were trying to crawl uphill.)

I'd already had a good day, managing to bag 3 beasts in the morning. Then the last stalk of the day was right on the top of a hill. The wind had dropped to nothing, the sun was in my face and the snow was crunchy and very difficult to move on quietly. With a lot of care I managed to get to within 100 yards of a herd without them becoming aware of me.

As a result, I managed to shoot a couple of dry hinds before the rest ran off. "That's a horseful" I thought " that'll do nicely." Then the herd stopped and right at the back was another lovely big yeld hind, standing apart from the others.

I can resist everything except temptation. As she was standing bum on to me, my only option was a neck shot. It was a long shot- about 220 yards I estimated- but as she was facing straight away from me the chances of a wounding were extremely small. At that angle you usually drop them in their tracks or dont touch them at all. Sort of "do or DONT die". Wouldn't you know it, she dropped to the shot.

So there I was with 3 big hinds, my horse 1 mile and 1000 vertical ft away, the land-rover 1 mile in the other direction and less than 2 hours of light. Oops!

There was little option. When Eric- my ponyman- eventually arrived with Fergus- the pony- we loaded the 2 largest beasts on the saddle and they headed off. And the last beast? I attached my drag rope to it and hauled it back to the 'rover.

Before I'd even started squeezing the trigger on the third beast, I'd known that this was the only likely solution. (In these parts you ask questions first and shoot later, pardner.) I rationalised that the uphill and flat parts of my drag were in snow and the vast majority of the rest was downhill. So that was all right.

And the theory was good -actually I've dragged deer from here before. Just not quite as big as this one. By the time I was back at the rover, I was lathered. And my reward for all this effort?

I got to skin 2 of them back at the larder while my sweat chilled. (We only skin our best, clean shot yeld hinds. They then get sold privately at a better price than we get from the game dealer.)

When I at last got home I would have liked nothing more than to have settled down in front of the fire. Instead, it was a quick turn-around and off out to a local ceilidh followed by an hours drive to my parents for the night.

No rest for the wicked? Just call me Damien.