You will have been warned about meeting people over the internet so it was a bit odd that I headed north to Scotland last week to meet someone I had usually argued with on my blog and various other ethereal places. As I pulled up outside a house in Fife the barking of labradors made me wonder what sort of welcome was about to be unrolled.
But although Andy Richardson and I have very different interests in the countryside – he is an ex-gamekeeper, ex lobster-fisherman, keen photographer, good cook and goose guide (he’ll take you to shoot them) – we also have a lot in common. As he showed me around lowland Fife, and we spent a day in the hills talking to gamekeepers, we agreed about a great deal. This didn’t extend to Andrew agreeing that seals were cute or me agreeing that badgers should be culled but those conversations were useful too.
Thanks Andy for a great trip, and those conversations with upland gamekeepers will provide information (not ammunition) for an article on grouse and hen harriers that I have been asked to write for a ‘sporting’ publication. And I’ll assume that the expensive camera you left in my car was a present!
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One of our best friends shoot and we regularly enjoy the fruits of their efforts. The last,a Mallard, was very tasty. A chap I meet regularly whilst walking my dog, works his and he shoots. He once told me about the kill list he kept in a notebook and I him about my birding notebook. We had a chuckle. Both great people and lovers of the great outdoors. Personnaly I couldn’t kill anything now. I once shot a rabbit with an air gun and that was that, but I have nothing against those who do. Birding is a form of hunting after all and like there are idiot birders, there are the same in hunting sports. It’s the good guys on both sides that need to stick together for the greater good in my view.
Endorse every word of Gert’s post. Here’s to new beginnings, we’re going to need them along with a great deal of understanding to get the best out the CAP.