Softly, softly...

Well, the forecasters weren't kidding. Last Friday we saw our first snow. Granted it was on hills 20 miles distant but snow it was. And you'll hear no complaints from me, neither. I'd rather have "blin' drift" than heat and midges.

So we finished our grouse season on a high (and I'm not talking altitude here) and ended up with our best numbers since 1999. And so onto the stag stalking....

Today was my first day and there was a lot to think about. Regular stalkers with me will be familiar with my little pre-flight checklist mantra. It goes:- riflebulletsbinocularstelescoperadiobackupdragropestagropesdogstickguest. However on top of that I had to make sure that I had all the ancillary gear in the right places.

Fergus (freshly shod) taken down to his paddock on the beat. Saddle (with correct length of girths) and head collar in the land rover. Horse feed at the farm (ok, so I forgot this. It's grass on tonights menu- sorry Fergus!). Radio batteries all charged. Rover filled with diesel. Etc, etc etc.

As it turned out, all this preparation was to no avail. We saw pleeenty of deer but only 2 mature stags that might have met our requirements. And when we stalked in we ended up with 100 hinds and a small but rather solid looking ridge twixt us and our intended. Stalemate.

Still it was nice to be moving quietly and carefully about the place rather than marching all over creation as we have been in recent times......

Summers End

Sometime during the night of my last blog, Autumn kicked in. Overnight we went from balmy to blimey!!

Of the next week we managed only 2 full days (though it was blowing a gale on one of them). The other 3 days were curtailed because of thick mist- with a liberal dose of heavy rain and high winds thrown in for good measure.

But everywhere we look we see reminders of the season. The Rowans and Bird Cherries are heavy with fruit- and even heavier with birds guzzling said fruit. The leaves are..er.. leaving, the last of the colour is fading out of the heather and the bracken is starting its transition from green to yellow to rust.

The rain has allowed a good many salmon up the river, at long last. And I even managed to catch one on Saturday. (I wont tell you how many hours I've had to put in for that one fish. Suffice to say that, were I on the minimum wage, I could have bought a whole shoal of the blessed creatures by now.)

And, yes, we're still driving grouse. This is our last week however and I think all of us are now looking forward to getting stuck into the stag stalking after this. One thing is for sure; even the stags on the most far-flung corners of the estate wont be safe. After 5 weeks of being in the beating line, we're all as fit as butchers dogs. Heaven help the guests!

Yes, it's really feeling like it's time to swap the flag for the rifle. Apart from the weather telling us the year is wearing on, the grouse are getting harder and harder to drive to the butts. (The weather is wilder, the grouse are wilder and are stronger fliers, also they are flyer- ie more cunning- and they are starting to pack together in large numbers. All this makes it more and more difficult to make up a bag.)

So roll on Autumn, the stag stalking and the rut. After all this grouse activity, it will be a shorter season than normal. Mind you, it sounds like the whole of Autumn might be foreshortened- they're predicting snow for the end of the week!

Insecticidal tendencies...

We're now well into our grouse season and, as our pre-season counts indicated, we're having a bumper year. The average bag for each day is hovering around the 100 brace (200 bird) mark. This seems to be the case regardless of where on the estate we're going or who's doing the shooting. (No offence, but shooting ability varies greatly from person to person. And no-where is it needed more than on a day of driven grouse.)

A season like this really raises the moods of everybody involved. It's just as well really as it's turning out to be a bumper year for midges too. For the past week we've had a high pressure system sitting over the country. This has given us a week of dry, settled weather. And no winds.

For those of you who have never experienced the Scottish midge, I have only one thing to say to you- lucky swines!! Pound for pound, the midge has got to be the most voracious bloodsucker on this earth. And at this time of year when it's mild and the wind speed drops below 4 knots, they come out in their millions. And that's no exaggeration.

Through a combination of their diminuitive size (say 1-2mm long) and this sheer weight of numbers, they are tough cookies to deal with. Swatting them is like trying to swat smoke. Repellants are like Gentlemans Relish for them. They'll tunnel through loose-weave clothing (wool socks!) and exploit the smallest chinks in your garbs defenses (button flies-aarrrgghh!!).

I confess I would have lost my sanity lang syne if it weren't for one thing; the midge net. This is a fine mesh net with an elasticated hem that goes over your head. It's simple, effective (for your head, anyway) and makes you look like a complete dork. However, so does running about the hill, frantically waving your arms and screaming like a girl.

No, as far as discoveries go, the midge net has to be up there with the wheel, fire, and the Venetian blind (without which it would be curtains for us all.)

They've got to be worth their weight in gold...... but I reckon I could get double that if I timed it right.

Thanks

I can scarcely believe that I've now been doing this blog for a year. I remembered the anniversary only because I was creosoting a footbridge over the river. It's a beautiful spot and I remember waxing lyrical about it when I worked on the same bridge at the same time last year. And I remember I didn't drop anything in the river last time either.

Those of you who are regular visitors will now have a pretty good idea of what a year in my life entails. However I'm very aware of all the things I haven't yet told you about. I guess you'll just have to keep watching this space!

I'd also like to thank you all for your continued support. Those of you 'followers' who are visitors to the estate, I hope we'll be seeing you sometime in the coming weeks. But there are others I'd also like to say a big thank you to.

For example, my 'stats counter' tells me that I have a regular visit from someone in the San Francisco area ? and another looking in from Rio de Janeiro (or thereabouts). The very idea of it blows me away. I'd just like to say 'hi' guys, I hope you've enjoyed it- and continue to do so. And that goes for all of you visitors out there in Wwwebland.

A handful of blogs ago, I mentioned that I'd been offered a column in a magazine. Partly because of these blogs, as it happens.(This blows me even further away!) The magazine is called 'The Scots' and my first piece is in the latest (September) edition.

Now that I've seen it, the reality has struck home. And I'm finding it really rather scary. No, make that terrifying. Now, if I can keep my hands from trembling for long enough, I'll post you some pics of what is turning out to be our best grouse season for over 20 years.

I hope you'll drop in again soon.

Walking a Fine Line

You'd hardly credit it. It's grouse season- our most important time of the year, financially speaking- and you've heard not a dicky-bird from me. And to make matters worse, I've no pics for you either.

The truth is that a day of driving grouse is pretty full-on.

My day starts by making sure I have all the gear I'll be needing- clean suit with clean shirt and tie, waterproofs, lunch, flag, stick, fully charged radio and spare batteries, horn, dogs, whistle, lead, fuel in the 'rover. And I also have to make sure my dogs have a chance to do their business before they go into the back. (You only forget this once.)

Then we all meet at the bothies and take the beaters (making sure nobody is left behind) to the lodge.

At the lodge a decision is made as to which part of the estate we are going to. Then all the keepers head off with all the beaters (making sure nobody is left behind) to that area. Once there, we walk out then line out for the first drive. This can involve a 2 mile walk.

Once the guns are in place we get the shout to start the drive. We'll march the beating line back to the butts- another 2 miles. As we go, we have to ensure the line is kept orientated correctly (according to wind direction and topography), that beaters keep their spacing and keep in line. We also have to watch our dogs to make sure they're behaving and warn flankers (they 'funnel' the grouse over the butts) of approaching grouse on the radio. And we have to make sure nobody is left behind.

Once we get to the butts, those of us with dogs spend as much time as we dare helping with picking the shot birds. Then we march off with the beaters to line out for the next drive- another 2 miles- making sure that nobody is left behind.

And so it goes on, with a brief break for lunch somewhere in the middle of the day. Most of our shooting days involves 4 or 5 drives but sometimes there are 6. And at the end of the day, once the beaters (well, the ones we didn't leave behind) are returned to the bothies, we keepers sort out all the grouse into 'young' and 'old' and hang them in the chiller.

It's a day that's as mentally demanding as it is physically. (Except it's not.)

And that's why I haven't posted a blog until now. How's that for an excuse?

A Bit of a Shock

A week ago, I was ghillieing on the river for a group of guests. As they fished, the skies darkened until it was nigh on twilight. Then the rain started and we decided to beat a retreat back to the landrover. As we arrived at the vehicle there was an almighty crackling flash immediately followed by one of those crashes of thunder that seems to come from every part of the sky.
Despite the fact that we all had a carbon fibre rod in our clutches, Thor decided that today wasn't the day for smiting us with his big celestial hammer. No, instead he smote dozens of phones, satellite boxes, TVs, and computers up and down the glen, the b****rd.
And that's why, dear reader, I haven't posted a blog for so long.
The 'Glorious 12th' arrived on the Thursday and we went to the Northern extremes of the estate to do a bit of walked-up grouse shooting. As it was the weather was far from glorious, with prolonged showers of driving rain and heavy cloud just above head-height for most of the day. But it didn't dampen any spirits and everybody had a damnp fine time. I include a pic of one young lady who shot her first grouse. Unfortunately I had to wait so long for a break in the weather that her 'blooding' was just about entirely washed off by the rain. Congratulations, anyway!
It's always a fun week with this group, and usually with plenty of variety. It's also a nice gentle breaking-in for the start of the shooting season. Today, in contrast, was our first day of hardcore.
Organising a line of rookie beaters to drive grouse to guns; 5 drives in a day; with flukey winds and ever-dropping cloud base? No wonder I can hardly tpye a lien.

Not Out of the Woods Yet

I turned up for work yesterday hoping that I would get the chance to catch up on a few of these jobs that I've been harping on about. I think I'm going to have to change my harp for a bugle.

No, instead I was told we were all going to cut firewood for the bothies. Fair enough, it's another job that has to be done, and we're fast running out of time in which to do them. We start with guests in the lodge next week and will be busy with them from then on until the end of October.

So we put on our clumsy great steel-toecapped safety wellies, don our extra-thick chainsaw-resistant safety overtrousers, pop on our chainsaw helmets with integral visor and earmuffs and clump off into the rainforest. At least, it feels like a rainforest on this airless, muggy day.

Unfortunately, so distracted was I with getting my extra-thick, chainsaw-resistant safety overtrousers on, that I drew the short straw and landed the long saw. And that's the heaviest one. Within minutes of starting, wielding this brute has me soaking in sweat. And the midges are biting.

We saw and saw and by the time we have our 'piece', my back is nagging like I forgot our anniversary. (I guess thats why they call it lumbar pain.) Then we saw for another 4 hours.

We decide enough is enough and pull up stumps (har!) at 5 o'clock. And that's when our boss springs a little surprise on us. It turns out there's a delivery of hay bales due imminently- and they'll all need to be unloaded and stacked into our hayloft.

We arrive at the stables as the bales arrive. All 365 of them. That's somewhere just shy of 8 tonnes.

An hour later, they're all safely squirreled away and my back now thinks I slept with its sister.

I'd planned to write this blog yesterday evening, but after all that, I couldn't summon the strength to lift the lid of my laptop. And guess what we were doing again today.