In the teeth of the storm

Raging February winds make it a day to savour for Simon Garnham on a three-phase expedition geared to capitalise on the conditions

- Simon Garnham

Gale-force winds can supercharge rain like claymore mines firing. They assault your face and find every way to knife at your body. They break branches for fun and send the estuary into a vortex of angry spray and lather. Forecasters advise staying indoors. But, in February, to a sportsman such winds bring the same joy that an early school closure does to a schoolboy.

One such February day occurred. Tess and I set out into the teeth of the storm. On my little piece of East Anglian coast, wigeon are still considering their next mammoth journey. There are pintail too. And teal zip around in packs.

The lure of the marsh proved too great. I decided on three phases: a walk out at low tide, an afternoon in the woods chasing pigeon, then later back on the saltings for evening flight at high tide.

Phase one was creek crawling. Daytime shooting on the estuary near me has to be approached with caution. It’s a favourite spot for bird watchers, and rightly so. On the Big Farmland Bird Count this year, I was able to report lapwings, curlew, skylarks, grey partridges, linnets and corn buntings on the fields, while on the marshes, for the discerning twitcher, there were all manner of waders, duck and geese.

Entirely alone

While I’m proud of what we do within the shooting community, I don’t wish to upset people, so I rarely venture out during daylight hours when binoculars are poised and telescopes are ready on the seawall. But on the afternoon in question, Tess and I were entirely alone between the dark sky and the foaming deep.