Simply, Hunting

Those who know me well will testify that in recent months I've taken some significant steps to 'simplify' what was becoming a ridiculously complex lifestyle. I needed to eradicate much of the pressure which contributed to my decline in health over the past year or so. I've downsized my job, reduced some extra-curricular activities and given up smoking. I've also made a point of avoiding commitments or 'obligations' to undertake anything I really don't want to do. On the shooting front, I withdrew from my FAC hunting project because I wasn't enjoying the outcomes. I've taken a further step, though. I've stripped back my hunting to a very basic level and, boy .. am I enjoying it again!
 

Purists would probably expect that if I was looking to make hunting simple again, I must have reverted to hunting with one of my old spring guns? Yet I confess I haven't gone that basic. My delight with my new PCP carbine (the BSA Ultra SE) is documented elsewhere but let me explain why I choose a PCP as my shooting tool rather than a springer. I do still own and shoot spring rifles to get my eye back in and to discipline myself when I get the shooters 'yips'. If my breathing is faltering, my trigger finger faltering or I find myself neglecting to 'follow-through', I use sessions with a springer as 'therapy'. But I can't remember the last time I hunted with one? Two, maybe three years back? Sure, springers have traits that imply 'simplicity'. No external air source needed, low maintenance and a relatively cheap purchase price. Compared to a PCP though, they are primitive hunting tools. I'm currently using one of the cheapest (and by that I mean least costly, no reflection on quality) PCPs on the market. There are several makes now available at around £400 (therefore close to the price of a top-end springer). The advantages this little carbine gives over a springer are numerous for the hunter. No recoil (less exposure to inaccuracy), less noise (no spring 'crack'), no scope creep (caused by the recoil of a spring gun). It has a multi-shot magazine so I can re-load quickly and innocuously (little movement needed, often a giveaway when hunting). A featherweight rifle that I can tote around in one hand yet with an onboard air cylinder that can give me 50 shots from a full charge .. ample for a walkabout hunting session.

'Simplicity' in my hunting means even more to me, though, than choice of rifle. Simple means leaving at home the usual accumulation of gadgets and contraptions such as hides, nets and decoys that I've gathered over the years. Simple means halving the size of the game-bag  I carry and taking out all the comfort-toys and gizmos like range-finders, spinners or binoculars. Just a sparsely filled bag with some rubber eggs, a bird call, secateurs, spare pellets and a knife. Simple. Forget the wet-gear or insect repellent. Get wet or get bitten. Simple. Add a water bottle if it's hot, a flask of soup if it's cold. Simple also means going back to my early days as an airgun 'scribe', leaving behind the DSLR camera and lenses. I'm hunting, not making a BBC wildlife documentary. Now I'm just packing a top-end 14MP compact camera.. which is a massive improvement on the little 3MP camera which got me started in writing.

'Simple' means going out into the field and wood when it suits me, when I want to, with no particular commission in mind, no fixed agenda. No deadline. No target quarry species. Just mooching along the hedgerow or stalking up the margin. Just as I did as a young boy with a catapult. Simple means speculation and adventure, not knowing what will show around the next corner. It means sitting for a while in the shade, watching the wild world pass by. Listening to the thump of the rabbits paw, the chuckle of the approaching magpie, the sonorous song of the wood-pigeon, the harsh 'chack' of the jackdaw. Simple is squatting on a tree-stump with half an eye along the nettle strangled margin, waiting for the flutter of a stinger-top that betrays the emerging coney. Simple is looking down the heat-shimmering mirage of the field margin as the days warmth evaporates from the earth, as the rabbits slope out to browse around the yellow-tipped ragwort and purple loosestrife. Simple is pulling that little carbine to my shoulder, dis-engaging the safety catch, sighting up my target through my basic Hawke Map 6 reticule, breathing out gently and slipping the trigger. Simple is not worrying how many you shot, nor how many more you need to shoot. Simple is knowing you'll miss some .. yet you'll shoot more in future because you did. Failure is natures most accomplished teacher. Simple is not worrying if what you're doing is enough to satisfy thousands of readers. It's knowing that you're there, doing what you're doing because you, yourself, want to. If you're enjoying it, it will work through in your writing and your readers will enjoy it too.
 

 I went hunting this morning. With a simple little rifle. Shot a couple of rabbits and three grey squirrels. So, so simply.

 Copyright Ian Barnett 2013

The full version of this article, with photos, can be read in Airgun Shooter, published by Blaze Publishing Ltd.

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Jerusalem

 I rarely leave my beloved Norfolk. I say 'my' yet I'm not a native. I've have simply migrated over time back to the rich agricultural county where my mother was born. It was fated, I know. Ironically my mother lives in Cardiff, my fathers birthplace .. and where I was born. This weekend I paid a flying visit to Wales to see my kin and, rather than travel along the fast and barren arteries of our national motorway system, I deliberately chose to cruise the three hundred miles via the twisting, roller-coaster roads that link our market towns and cities. A journey that, as always, refreshed my pride in this green and pleasant land. The exit from the Norfolk hinterland was blighted with the temporary gouge across the landscape caused by the dualling work on the A11, the double-edged sword that will bring money and enterprise to the East but also destroy its pastoral privacy I fear.

The patchwork quilt that is rural England unfolded before us. The vast swathes of yellow oilseed rape and huge expanses of potato blossom. Oceans of malting barley and wheat ebbed and flowed in the summer breeze as we travelled through West Suffolk and the Cambridgeshire fens. The route through the South Midlands is easy now but here we found the most obvious landmarks of a Britain given over to mass consumerism and convenience. Even the huge hangars at Cardington that house the blimps which hover our football stadia were dwarved by the gargantuan distribution centres that line the route through Bedford and Milton Keynes. Vast unsightly angled structures adorned in laudable attempts to make them blend into the horizon. Blue sky thinking or thinking out of the box? Try again, guys. 

Between Bedford and Milton Keynes the capped landfills have yet to completely return to the wild but those methane-belching pipes will eventually slip below the cover of foliage.

Through 'roundabout-land' (or should Milton Keynes be called 'Tellytubby Land'?) and into red kite country beyond Buckingham. We had lost count by now of the roadkill badgers, muntjacs and roe deer splattered along the highways since leaving home. We, ourselves, had almost wiped out a scavenging buzzard that lingered too long at the foetid meat on the tarmac but it swept to safety just in time. Tis' no wonder the red kite thrives around the Midland arterial highways and motorways. Fresh meat aplenty for a raptor that rarely kills for itself.

And talking of buzzards? Not rare now in the East but still enough to draw a breath when seen, out here in the West we watched them now soaring above nearly every valley and tree-topped hill. And all along the way kestrels hovered and rooks laboured and jackdaws jinked around a thousand church spires.

Out along the A40 and through Oxfordshire to Gloucestershire snaking through a verdant, lush landscape that brings to mind Blake and Parry and 'Jerusalem'. My fathers favourite hymn and the one that bade him farewell as his curtains closed. A detour through the slendour that is Cheltenham to remind us that architecture once was 'grand'. 

Down the West bank of the Severn, we took lunch at Newham, looking over the shallow river. Below us, on the mudflats, clear prints. Otter sign. We turned back up into the hills, through the Forest of Dean to drop down under The Kymin and over the bridge into Monmouth. Some twenty years since I walked, with friends, from Chepstow to Hay along the Offas Dyke Way and lurched wearily down that huge hill that is The Kymin to our first nights rest. Today, just as back then, a fly fisher stood waist deep in the Wye casting his line.

Down through Llantrissent to Newport. A town which I remember as a boy being the epitome of those 'dark, satanic mills' in the hymn. A steel town, chimneys belching filth and pollution and the mouth of the Usk running with poison. Now, as I crept into Cardiff by the back door (lest someone spot me) I was pleasantly surprised at the suburban countenance. It was just a short visit and soon I was brought my chariot of fire. It was a relief, though, to see that all was well in Englands pleasant pastures. So too, in what I saw of Wales!

On Bird And Animal Behaviour

I’m watching the cock blackbird, who is watching the droves of gulls and rooks returning home to rest. What is he thinking? The low, fast flight of a bird over his head makes him draw in his neck. Sparrowhawk ..! No .. he relaxes, for it is a late returning woodpigeon flashing across the garden. The blackbird is watching me too, though he is familiar with my presence here on my garden deck. He's enjoying his territory and I’m enjoying mine. He can’t possibly know that I strive to protect him and his like. He will only ever know me as a threat .. for I am human. I enjoy his presence and he tolerates my intrusion. His country cousins would not allow such close proximity. They would spot me and go rocketing through the wood with a “chee, chee, chee, chee, chee”. A continuous racket which they reserve for the presence of man. They will act entirely differently if a fox, cat or stoat is threatening their domain. Their alarm call will be much more subtle. They will circumnavigate the threat, issuing a familiar, monotone "pip-pip-pip". This is a trend that gamekeepers of old used to their benefit, the first call to know when there was a poacher in the wood and the second to know that a predator was around which might threaten the poults. That tendency to fuss around a ground based, animal threat allowing the keeper to track the culprit and stop it in it’s tracks.

The jay is one of nature's most observant sentries. Yet, she will behave in a fashion almost opposite to the blackbird. She will hover, darting under cover from bough to bough around human presence, though she will remain distant. If there is a natural threat (fox, cat, mustelid, grey squirrel) she will be much closer to them (still circling, still screaming). Catch a jay in the open though and they will arrow off, screeching, to announce your presence to every creature within two hundred yards. Worse still, your quarry will heed this warning. Whilst the browsing rabbit will usually ignore the clatter of a wood pigeon (perhaps because they do it all the time) they will flatten to the ground or bolt to cover when the jay sounds her alarm. Another canny watchman is the carrion crow. Over the years, I have tried to interpret the various calls of the crow and have mostly failed miserably. I am still convinced, though, that the treble-syllable call they emit when I’m spotted with a rifle (a “graw,graw,graw”) really does mean “gun, gun, gun!”.

I am in no doubt that many wild creatures can detect malice. We humans certainly don’t have the patent on interpretation of body-language and I have been able to check this theory many times. The grey squirrel will sit on it’s bough watching you for an eternity until you raise your scope in it’s direction. Then it will flee. Recently, I stepped from cover to see a hare staring back at me. My rifle was slung over my shoulder. I backed into cover and drew the camera from my bag. I stepped out and this normally wary beast allowed me to photograph it at leisure. I stepped back into cover and exchanged camera for air rifle. Not that I intended to shoot a hare with an air rifle, it was simply because I wanted to move on. As soon as I emerged with the un-slung rifle, the hare bolted.

Similarly, sitting on the garden deck with my wife, we watched a magpie perched on the roof of our neighbours house. I knew that although it had most of it’s attention on our neighbours bird-table, it had half an eye on us. We were moving about, preparing a barbeque. It still perched there, not feeling at all threatened. After a while I whispered to my wife "Watch this!”. I turned to the bird and slowly raised my empty arms in a mock shooting stance. The magpie squawked away in alarm immediately. Perhaps it’s the profile of a gun (or a man’s arms) which, when horizontal, registers an alarm signal in the wild psyche?

Habitual intelligence is another trend that fascinates me as a hunter. The ability of bird and beast to memorise incident and consequence. The way they can associate activity with outcome. Sometimes, it works to their advantage. Often it can be their downfall. An example of this is the baiting of corvids. Regular baiting (shoot rabbit, paunch rabbit, leave paunch in the same spot) will get results. The crows or magpies will associate the spot with food and re-visit regularly. Once the routine is established, you can hide up and be certain of a shot or two. Shoot the spot too often, however and they will steer clear. That little memory chip in that tiny brain will now associate the location with danger. Incident and consequence.

Perhaps more impressive (or sinister) are the foxes that follow me when I’m lamping rabbits at night. Not only do they know that they are guaranteed rabbit paunches before I leave (activity and outcome), but they also seem to be sure that my air rifle is not a weapon which would threaten them. In fact, so intelligent (or reckless) was one vixen that often followed me, she ran down my beam from behind me one night to try and snatch a rabbit I had cowering in the light. She damn near got a pellet in the rear-end but I managed to pull the shot in time. She missed, for the rabbit bolted, then stood in my beam looking forlornly at the empty spot where the rabbit had squatted. I held the beam on her and she trotted back up the light, eyes like tiny moons, to position herself behind me again. Her demeanour spoke volumes .. “Lets try that again, can we?” .. though I’ve never seen the like since.

At the start of this piece, I mentioned the clamour of rooks which pass over my house before dusk. A wonderful spectacle. I can sit and watch the hordes pass over at leisure, their internal navigation fixed on some far flung evening roost. As soon as I raise a camera lens in their direction, they break formation and wheel away in dismay, avoiding my attention and clearly disturbed by it. A thousand rooks and one little dot in a garden far below, yet they know I’m looking. How do they do that?

 

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The Source Of The Rile

So the seemingly relentless easterlies have finally turned and the warmer kiss of the westerly breeze this weekend chased Jack Frost from my Norfolk hinterland .. hopefully not to return now until theres a 'v' in the month. This mornings walk out with the air rifle and lurcher saw me with two layers less, no gloves and a coating of DEET .. the shooters 'eau de cologne'. The westerlies, when they arrived, brought moderate rain on their front. They usually do. The combination of warm air and precipitation tickled the time-clock of a million hidden larvae. It always does. And so, as the hound and I tracked out through the forest toward the Source of the Rile, it was a through swarms of gnats and midges.

Not that I was complaining too much. That overnight rain had undone the harsh work of those persistent easterly winds, which had left the leaf mulch on the woodland floor so arid of late, stalking was akin to dancing in a vat of potato crisps. Today, I had the luxury of a damp, deep natural carpet. All I had to do was avoid the twigs. But why the need for such stealth? Because we're hunting, my 'dawg' and me. We're searching for the Source of the Rile. A vital mission, to be taken with all seriousness, lest we lose our precious hunting land. The phone call had come mid-week from the irate land-owner. "There are far too many grey squirrels about, Ian". I didn't argue .. there are feckin' thousands of them in Norfolk! "They are decimating my bird feeders. What are you going to do about it". It wasn't a question. It was an order. "Best I come over and shoot a few, sir?" I suggested. "Best you do, young man! I am extremely riled!" I was going to mention that I don't actually get paid to do this, by him, but thought better of it. His is a pleasant little estate and provides great sport for an air-gunner. I am aware, too, how many other air-gun shooters would love this permission.

So here we were. I knew, as we stole into the wood, the position of every drey in the copse at the end of this gentleman's garden. There were far fewer live ones than he imagined. I settled the dog into a 'lay' position next to me beneath. We watched the tree canopy, both of us. Not hard, as the leaves have yet to bud. Dylan would be my radar, my eyes and ears, for he can sense a grey squirrel at 100 yards at the mere twitch of its bottle-brush tail. He is infallible, a legend, written about in two books and a myriad magazine articles. Not! As we both stared tree-ward, a grey squirrel scampered from behind the tree ten feet to out right, froze in the open as it sensed us, considered it's future carefully and sprinted back. As I fumbled to raise the rifle, the lurcher dis-obeyed every rule in the "How To Keep My Master Happy" book and went after it. The critter went up the trunk, the lurcher went behind the trunk and I went ballistic. "Get your bl**dy *rse back here!" I screamed. Which obviously agitated the squirrel more than him and it set off across the boughs. 1-0 to the grey squirrel population and a legendary lurchers career lay in tatters. He trotted back and settled down again on the floor at least two 'kicks' away from my position. Wisdom comes with sore experience.

Still relying on him to indicate 'incoming' I kept half an eye on his demeanour. When he sat up, looking across the woodland floor with his head tilted and ears flapping, I came alert. He kept looking back at me, quizzically. I followed his gaze and I, too, was confused. Nothing! Then I noticed what he was seeing. Small flicks and jumps amongst the leaf mulch. First I saw a couple then, as my eyes focussed on that level, I became aware that were dozens of movements. Then, dozens and dozens! I looked around and we were in the midst of a sea of migrating common toads. They were moving from the gentlemans garden ponds down to the stream and large pond at the edge of the copse. Some were coupled, mating, others were solo. Amazing.

We moved away, so as not to disturb them. Further up the wood, Dylan tuned into Channel Grey eventually and we took out a few of the squirrels exiting the bird feeders next to the manor house. Caught in the act, so to speak. As I sat under an ancient yew tree, trimming the tails from the greys, I sensed I was being watched. Glancing up, my stare was returned by the face of a little owl scowling down at me from not six feet above my head! I slowly reached for my ever present camera but when I looked up again, she was gone.

I took the tails and hung them in a plastic bag on the gentleman's garage door. He would use these when tying flies for his fishing hooks. Now he could, in all likelihood, complain that I'd only shot two? And I could retort that they were the two actually raiding his feeders today. If he phones though, I would be more likely to say that I only chose to leave him the two for his fly-tying. I needed the other ten for my own purposes. (Wink, wink!)

 

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A Tale Of Two Books

When I sat down to write my first book about airgun hunting a few years back I had no idea how long the publishing process takes. Like most budding authors, I assumed that if a publishing house accepted your work they would rush it onto the bookshelves before a rival publication appeared. Having agreed a contract, I was a tad frustrated that I wouldn't actually see the printed book for nearly two years! Most publishers have a queue of 'work in progress' and the mechanics of constructing a book, editing, approving photographs, passing back and forth copy for approval and finally printing it .. are time consuming. If I was impatient with the process, I was absolutely delighted with the end result when Merlin Unwin sent across the first print of 'An Airgun Hunters Year'. I can't describe the pride you feel turning over a book in your hands, with your name on the cover as author. It is a sublime moment .. like holding your new born baby in your hands.

That first book was presented by Merlin Unwin and Karen McCall in exactly the way I had conceived it. I hadn't wanted my first book to be a 'how to' manual. There were already several airgun books of that ilk. It is a book that was written (like my magazine articles) with the intention of drawing the reader deep into the countryside alongside me to touch, taste, hear and smell the ambience that surrounds the true hunter. A celebration of life, not death.  A book that would explain the importance of conservation, species preservation and crop protection. I also wanted to convey the value of recycling shot quarry and so the book contains simple recipes. I even indulged myself with poetry based around an autobiographical figure .. The Hunter.  

My second book, produced by Blaze Publishing (also publishers of Airgun Shooter, a magazine I write for monthly) was definitely a deliberate 'how to' publication. Yet I was determined to stick with the descriptive flow and written 'picture-painting' that readers tell me they enjoy in my magazine work. Airgun Fieldcraft gave me the opportunity to bleed myself .. to impart hundreds of small tips, tricks, observations, facts and theories that I've absorbed or used to my advantage in over 30 years of small vermin shooting with air rifles. Rather than poetry, I wrote at the start of each chapter a 'visualisation' from the quarry's perspective .. life through the eye of the creature .. which I enjoyed doing. Again, the book contains recipes and (as with book one) it allowed me to showcase my other passion, photography.

Will there be a book three? Of course there will. Writing, for me, comes with supreme ease. I find it relaxing and only rarely stressful (such as when I have a deadline!). It is addictive .. but I haven't decided on which project (I have several in mind) I want to tackle next.

If you fancy a trip through Ian Barnetts' Norfolk countryside, if you like a poem or want to imagine what it's like to be a crow or a rat, if you want a tasty recipe for wood pigeons, details on how to purchase my books can be found on my website or Facebook page. Just tap on the links below.

 

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An Easter Reflection

Don't tell anyone will you? I saw a very rare mammal in a field North of Norwich this morning. I raised my rifle to cull it but stayed the shot. Then I saw a few more. Still, I was reluctant to shoot. It wasn't a native British animal although rumour has it that it was once extremely common in the British countryside. Introduced from Europe by the Romans (or was it Normans .. much historic debate about this) it took a foothold in these in isles that changed the landscape. It dug and burrowed, opening out areas of heathland and stripping sapling copses. Over hundreds of years it nibbled our grazing pastures, undermined our railway embankments and fornicated its way into legendary numbers.
From the middle ages, up until last century, it was even farmed for its meat and fur. It became the staple food of the peasant, the badger, the fox and the buzzard yet its penchant for agricultural damage made it many enemies. It became hunted with hound, ferret, net, gun, hawk and snare. Yet still its fecundity outran its persecution. Then, in the mid-twentieth century it was dealt a shameful blow. Biological warfare. The deliberate introduction of a species specific virus called myxomatosis, developed by our Antipodean brethren (whose vast sheep farms were swarming with the pest). The virus became a plague and millions of these small mammals stumbled around the countryside sick and blinded by the mucus caking their sad brown eyes.
Nature, though, has a wonderful knack of standing on the opposite side of an unfairly weighted scale. Gradually, the surviving creatures developed resilience to the virus .. though rarely immunity. To this day the myxomatosis virus swims in the blood of the flea, the mosquito and the tick to randomly attack colonies of our mystery animal. Many now survive the disease but will bear the scars of its attack.
More recently, another alleged 'manufactured' disease was let loose on our humble mammal. VHD (Viral Haemorrhagic Disease) has attacked colonies throughout the UK. Unlike 'myxie', we rarely saw the victims for they simply bled to death within their burrows. All we noticed was the sudden lack of sightings of the beasts. Yet still .. our animal continued to rise in numbers. Good news for the hunter, the badger, the fox and the buzzard. Free food for all. In fact, so prolific was its breeding two or three years ago I was shooting even its kittens all year round to control numbers.
Then suddenly, last year, Mother Nature dealt an unusually bitter blow. Perhaps she thought that the badger and the fox were having far too easy a life due to the interference of man? Certainly these large predators have never enjoyed such a prolonged period of enforced protection .. their numbers spiralling out of control. It's often said that Nature abhors a vacuum, yet she also detests a glut .. and moves swiftly to redress the balance. What better way than to reduce the primary food source? An act of retribution she unleashes globally with her proclivity for creating famine, pestilence, flood, catastrophe and fire.
Last autumn and over this winter she let loose the power of precipitation. To put it bluntly, it pissed down for months. Water tables rose across the UK, thousands of square miles of land were flooded (many still are) and the ardour of our little agricultural pest was somewhat dampened. Nor did it have anywhere to delve and nest. This effect cascaded upward in the food chain too. I haven't seen a single fox cub on my shooting permissions so far this year.
So this morning I was mightily relieved to see the return of an animal I haven't shot for nearly four months .. and nor will I until I see numbers that indicate the flush of revival. The creature? Well, you've guessed of course.
Happy Easter, Mr Bunny!

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Hunting Heffalumps (with apologies to AA Milne!)

As we set across the open service track between the farm buildings and the sixteen acre coverts, the bitter Easterly wind picked up the nights light dusting of snow and whipped it in tiny eddies across the frozen plough. The lurcher cast into the breeze, his light, rough coat swept horizontal by the wind. Not gusting but constant, this Arctic-born zephyr cut like a knife, bringing tears to my eyes. We hurried over the white mile, man and dog eager to reach the relative shelter of the wood, paws and boots cracking the fragile ice covering the puddled tractor ruts.

Inside the wood we were to meet disappointment. The cold wind chased us mercilessly and sent her icy sprites dancing among the pine boles to bite the exposed skin. I was well wrapped in micro-fleece and sub-layers of cotton but the imps soon found my cheeks and trigger finger. Thankfully I had a Zippo hand-warmer cooking in my pocket to relieve the latter. The lurcher had scant protection. Not much meat on this little bag o' bones running machine and he kept stopping to nip the balled up ice gathering between his pads. I pulled the fleece snood up to cover my chin and set off deeper into the wood. This was a day to keep moving.

Pretty soon I noticed the tracks of a single beast impressed in the shallow snow ahead of me. The dog had his snout down and was following them keenly. Huge prints, padded and clawed. Twice the size of the dogs. All those speculative stories about big cats in this area of Norfolk immediately leapt to mind. Having little other purpose this morning (any sensible vermin being holed up in burrow or drey)  I decided to follow them for as far I could. I knew what the beast was, of course. I've been tracking animals for too long to be fooled by these prints. Nonetheless, there was fun to be had here. Here we were, my hound and I, in the sixteen-acre plantation playing at being Piglet and Pooh  .. on the trail of a Heffalump!

The trail followed along a man-made ride pretty rigidly, though now and again I could see where the mythical beast had veered off to scent and spray. The pheromones of that spray sending a shiver of caution through Piglet, my lurcher. His fear was palpable, yet he bravely nosed on. We both jumped, hearts in mouths, when a red stag leapt up from cover and called its two hinds up behind him. The huge deer leapt to safety, his harem following, as the dog stood panting. Eventually the tracks left the path and headed off under bare briar and over sandy hummock, deep into the nether-land of the coverts. This is where Piglet came into his own, following the scent while Pooh could only trust and follow, picking up a print here and there. I was comforted by the regular evidence of snuffling and rooting. Areas of leaf mulch thrown up as the creature had sought slight morsels of food which could surely never satisfy its bulky frame? This was a big beast, needing substantial feast.

I never expected to meet this particular Heffalump face to face so I carried no fear in the hunt. I knew he was a creature of the night. Thus, it was no real surprise when Piglet finally led me to the mouth of the Heffalump den. A hole so large the dog, standing 24" at the shoulder, could almost enter if he dared. The dogs nose pulled him inward, curiosity mixed with fear but he soon retreated. It was almost as though he could visualise the cast iron claw and the vicious tooth of the beast. He withdrew a distance, bidding me ( with his whine) to come away too.

As we left the lair of the Heffalump, we followed the tracks made as it had exited the nest at the start of its nocturnal expedition. Just like Pooh and Piglet, we followed them around to where we had first seen the trail .. full circle. Now a foolish hunter could have been tricked into thinking that at this point, the creature had been joined by a man and a dog .. and gone around the trail again.  Heffalumps always seem to hunt in circles. So do badgers. Could our beast have been a badger? Well, possibly it could have been a massive boar badger, with tracks like that? But I'd like to think that I'd found a Heffalump lair. What do you think?

 

If you like this, check out my books and my writing in Airgun Shooter and The Countrymans Weekly

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