Bittersweet And Beautiful

Autumn is the perfect time to linger in the golden sunlight, relish the scents and colours, and look forward to the shooting season ahead

I spent the last three days of August flanking on a grouse moor, meeting old friends, occasionally waving my flag, watching grouse swerve and skim over the heather and, on the last day, which fortunately was only a morning, getting wet through.

They were good days, even the wet one, and I am sad that this season will bring me no more of them, because on this moor there are not enough birds for more shooting.

I think the keepers saw a few more than they were expecting. With a high proportion of young birds and given a kind spring next year, I should be spending more than three days up there in the heather waving my flag. Three days was not enough but it was much better than last year’s no days. It will buy me something like a tonne of wheat, but the best thing about those three days concerns my young spaniel, Zac. Three days on the bottom flank of a grouse moor was just what he needed.

I have written about how Zac’s occasional habit of suddenly heading into the blue or grey yonder was cured by the very sparing use of an electric training collar (Shock result with a wayward spaniel, 5 June). I argued that this was justified if it was going to help Zac do what he was made for.

Spaniels are happiest when hunting under control and the sight of him now, quartering High Park’s rushy pastures, turning and sitting to the whistle, is the sight of a dog finding fulfilment in his work. I think Zac is now unlikely to forget himself and suddenly head for the far horizon in defiance of his master’s bellowing and despairing commands.