A long wait, then Stan's the man

It’s the first duck flight of the season and a young springer shows his mettle, to Jack Bell’s delight

- Jack Bell

I received an unexpected phone call from the Editor a week before the start of the shooting season. I thought he had phoned to pass some time as he made his way from London back to Dumfriesshire, but I was pleasantly surprised when he kindly invited me duck flighting on the first Saturday of the season.

It’s a 28-mile drive between my house on the Solway and the Editor’s home, taking in some stunning rural scenery on winding backroads. The change in landscape is the most noticeable difference between these two distinct parts of Dumfries and Galloway. However, if you delve into the ecological workings of a place, you soon notice local variances, even when the sites are only separated by a few miles.

These ecological differences may be easy to explain and are usually linked directly to the adjacent landscape or prevailing weather conditions. But in other cases, explanations are much more difficult to find. Recently, I was asked if I would be duck flighting at the start of the season on one of my coastal ponds. It was not something that had crossed my mind, not least because two of our ponds are currently home to 300 released mallard growers.

My lack of enthusiasm for early season flighting stems from a poor show of ducks during the months of September and October. Feed waste is high and the returns are usually low. To most — myself included — this seems strange considering my ponds are situated a mere stone’s throw from the Solway Firth and several large river systems.

Consistent