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12 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

Can you build a landscaped backdrop berm against which to shoot errant pheasants safely? 

 

Hmm. It's generally considered unsporting to shoot a pheasant on the ground.  I guess exceptions could be made, if maybe you used, say, a blow pipe to give it a chance...

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7 hours ago, Roundtuit said:

It's generally considered unsporting to shoot a pheasant on the ground

Depends on your own personal perspective, I shoot for my own food or to protect my own or other people’s produce from vermin. I shoot to kill and the easier the shot the better. There is no level of sport in my shooting beyond enjoying being in the great outdoors and always trying to make each shot I take better than the last. I have nothing against sports shooting it’s just not something I personally enjoy. 

 

7 hours ago, Roundtuit said:

I guess exceptions could be made, if maybe you used, say, a blow pipe to give it a chance...

Hmmm I never give  what I’m shooting a chance, I have found myself in an awkward situation a few times when crawling round the countryside to get myself into a good position only to find what I want to shoot is actually far to close when I take a sneaky look from my advantage point.....  anyway serious  thread deviation...... sorry. 

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No need to shoot pheasants here. The damn things are all over the roads and get hit so many times I’m surprised there are any left for shooting. 

 

@Redoctober that’s a black pheasant you have there? Seen a few of them but none from the estate round here that breeds pheasants. 

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26 minutes ago, newhome said:

No need to shoot pheasants here. The damn things are all over the roads and get hit so many times I’m surprised there are any left for shooting. 

 

@Redoctober that’s a black pheasant you have there? Seen a few of them but none from the estate round here that breeds pheasants. 

 

The suicidal instinct that pheasants seem to have on roads never ceases to amaze me.  What on earth makes them decide to run,at the last second, from a place of relative safety by the side of the road, right into the path of oncoming cars? 

 

As and aside, we seem to have a growing population of Silver pheasants around here.  Interestingly they don't seem to be as suicidal as their more common, ring-necked cousins, might be why their numbers seem to be increasing, survival of the fittest and all that.

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5 hours ago, Cpd said:

Depends on your own personal perspective, I shoot for my own food or to protect my own or other people’s produce from vermin. I shoot to kill and the easier the shot the better. There is no level of sport in my shooting beyond enjoying being in the great outdoors and always trying to make each shot I take better than the last. I have nothing against sports shooting it’s just not something I personally enjoy. 

 

Hmmm I never give  what I’m shooting a chance, I have found myself in an awkward situation a few times when crawling round the countryside to get myself into a good position only to find what I want to shoot is actually far to close when I take a sneaky look from my advantage point.....  anyway serious  thread deviation...... sorry. 

I think shooting pheasant on the ground is quite frowned upon around here. Our plot used to be used for shoots (along with surrounding ground) for pheasant and geese, plenty of deer have been taken on it as well, not by me I should add.

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3 hours ago, JSHarris said:

The suicidal instinct that pheasants seem to have on roads never ceases to amaze me.  What on earth makes them decide to run,at the last second, from a place of relative safety by the side of the road, right into the path of oncoming cars?

 

They are weird creatures for sure. Most animals and birds will take flight at the sign of danger. Even if visually something doesn't appear dangerous you would think that the noise would make them take flight, but no. Mind you I imagine chickens crossing the road are similarly stupid, and don't often make it to the other side either, but there are just less of those running free. 

 

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If you want to do any major restructuring then the first step is to survey before and after plans so you can look at movement / cut and fill options.  Also dig test holes to look at soil profiles.  If you have enough topsoil depth then probably the easiest option is to get someone in with a min-digger and blade.  But if the soil depth is less than the cut amounts, then the work goes up about 3× because you need to scrape off the topsoil, re-level and then replace a topsoil layer.

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25 minutes ago, TerryE said:

If you want to do any major restructuring then the first step is to survey before and after plans so you can look at movement / cut and fill options.  Also dig test holes to look at soil profiles.  If you have enough topsoil depth then probably the easiest option is to get someone in with a min-digger and blade.  But if the soil depth is less than the cut amounts, then the work goes up about 3× because you need to scrape off the topsoil, re-level and then replace a topsoil layer.

 From what I remember it is topsoil to about 850mm then clay to about 1.4 meters.  

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1 hour ago, newhome said:

 

They are weird creatures for sure. Most animals and birds will take flight at the sign of danger. Even if visually something doesn't appear dangerous you would think that the noise would make them take flight, but no. Mind you I imagine chickens crossing the road are similarly stupid, and don't often make it to the other side either, but there are just less of those running free. 

 

They prefer to run rather than fly although they can fly quite fast over short distances. They don't seem to recognise vehicles as a real danger but try walking up them and they're off making a hell of a racket. 

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31 minutes ago, Ralph said:

They don't seem to recognise vehicles as a real danger but try walking up them and they're off making a hell of a racket. 

 

It's sad. There is utter carnage on the roads this time of year. I saw one crossing the dual carriageway in front of me a few days ago, slowly walking across the inside lane. I pulled out to the outer lane to miss it, the car behind pulled almost into the verge to miss it, and I'm sure it wouldn't have made it across 3 more lanes to the other side of the road to safety. Weird how they don't see a large moving object as a danger though. Apparently 35 million pheasants are released for shooting each year but circa 45% die from being shot, 42% die from other causes and about 13% survive the shooting season to try to live in the wild.

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1 minute ago, newhome said:

 

It's sad. There is utter carnage on the roads this time of year. I saw one crossing the dual carriageway in front of me a few days ago, slowly walking across the inside lane. I pulled out to the outer lane to miss it, the car behind pulled almost into the verge to miss it, and I'm sure it wouldn't have made it across 3 more lanes to the other side of the road to safety. Weird how they don't see a large moving object as a danger though. Apparently 35 million pheasants are released for shooting each year but circa 45% die from being shot, 42% die from other causes and about 13% survive the shooting season to try to live in the wild.

You are not wrong. I took this about a mile from our plot last year and there were more before I stopped.

PH.thumb.jpg.0adf29f91ee300f0fe08902e7b68092e.jpg

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22 hours ago, Christine Walker said:

Here’s our visitors tonight 455D9D3F-5343-42D0-BDD2-9472473E3182.thumb.jpeg.51e52ae63e8037c84ce55efb09a70276.jpeg

It's so nice to see them. We have a group of three that visit the plot quite a lot. In the summer you can see "doe rings" around the trees, where the bucks have been chasing the doe.

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1 hour ago, Ralph said:

I can recommend getting a cheap trail cam to see what visits when you're not there.

 

That's so cute! Sadly we get those killed on the roads round here too. Not as many as pheasants but there are still quite a few :(

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  • 1 month later...
12 hours ago, Lesgrandepotato said:

Judging from the amount of wild garlic he’s eaten I suspect he’s rather well seasoned by now. 

A few weeks ago I harvested loads of wild garlic put it in The food processor with olive oil, blasted it down to a good paste and froze  it in large ice cube containers...... after processing it all I realised I need to eat two portions a week for a year to get through it all......... think I may be well seasoned by this time next year as well......  

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On 24/03/2019 at 09:24, JSHarris said:

 

The suicidal instinct that pheasants seem to have on roads never ceases to amaze me.  What on earth makes them decide to run,at the last second, from a place of relative safety by the side of the road, right into the path of oncoming cars? 

 

As and aside, we seem to have a growing population of Silver pheasants around here.  Interestingly they don't seem to be as suicidal as their more common, ring-necked cousins, might be why their numbers seem to be increasing, survival of the fittest and all that.

 

If somebody is going to call the poor thing ring-necked, then no wonder they are suicidal?

 

Nominative determinism?

Edited by Ferdinand
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