When the bird's not as easy as it looks

Tom Payne finds out why those simple 'sitters' are often the ones most frequently missed and advises on how to put things right

- Tom Payne

Is there such a thing as an ‘easy’ bird? And how would you define easy? You often hear it said that somebody has missed a ‘sitter’, but one person’s sitter may be another person’s Achilles heel.

Inevitably, we all want to overcome those easy misses, but how do you actually get there? As ever, a lot of it is practice, but it is also a case of understanding what a bird is actually doing rather than just guessing at what you think it’s doing.

If I think about it from my perspective, and from the many conversations I’ve had over the years, there are probably four ‘easy shots’ that get missed too often. The first of these is the walked-up cock pheasant. It’s probably also the most frustrating shot when you do miss it. It seems so simple — up it bursts from cover, but rush the shot or hesitate and hope turns quickly to disappointment.

The second commonly missed shot has to be that ‘easy’ partridge out of a covey. Your thoughts turn to a right and left, and this small covey has suddenly turned into a mess as you let the first bird go and then inevitably snatch at the second and miss it too.

The third is the slow-roosting pigeon. You’ve waited for a while for the roost to start, and you can see the bird approaching with its friends in tow. It hovers above its chosen branch and with two noisy shots, all is wasted. Pigeons everywhere but nothing on the floor.