Making the most of it

With buildings and roads ruling out the use of a shotgun, Mat Manning sets up an airgun ambush to defend farmers’ fields from avian pests

The drone of busy combine harvesters heralds what can be the most bountiful part of my shooting year. Pigeons and corvids quickly home in on the easy pickings left in the wake of these giant machines, and the resulting frenzy can create wonderful shooting opportunities.

Shooting over stubbles is an important tool in the ongoing battle to protect crops from hungry birds. There is often a swift turnaround between harvesting and drilling, and any pigeons or crows that have been attracted to the stubbles will make a menace of themselves when the next crop goes in.

It’s not only the fields that the birds are initially drawn to that are at risk. Adjacent fields will soon get hit when they’ve gleaned all that was left by the combines, and ripening crops, especially those with laid areas, can be extremely vulnerable when numbers of birds start to build. Most of the farmers in my locality use bangers in a bid to move on avian pests, but I am sure they will all agree that shooting is far more effective. Birds soon learn to ignore the constant boom of the non-lethal scarers and carry on regardless.

Though it is by far my favourite approach for most crop protection jobs, there are times when a shotgun is not the right tool for the job. That was certainly the case last week when a farmer asked if I could help to push a large flock of assembled pigeons and corvids away from a stubble field close to a growing brassica crop and almost as close to several houses and a busy road.

Frustrating