Gamekeeper

The snap of cold weather at the end of 2017 tightened up the birds and provided great seasonal sport — as well a few valuable lessons

Our season has gone well to date and, while we still have January to go, we are feeling quietly confident. The birds have held well and despite it being fairly mild early on we have now had our first frosts, and what I would call proper winter days, for several years. The cold weather and winds have definitely tightened the birds up and moved them off the fields into the drives.

They are flying well — which wasn’t the case last year when we had some substandard wheat — they are sharp and they are flushing freely even from  heavy cover.