A jewel, complete with a crown

A ‘malform’ spotted in the trail camera would make a perfect specimen to fill a hamper for Will Pocklington

- Will Pocklington

The neighbours must think it odd that I sometimes roll the car off the driveway before starting the engine. But they haven’t seen me installing cardboard window blackouts in my daughter’s room and oiling the hinges of every door in the house.

Truth be told, nowadays a stalk begins long before I leave home. If I’m to avoid the wrath of Mrs. P, a smooth and silent exit with no sleeping toddlers disturbed is essential. It’s not always straightforward, though.

This is what the keen stalker with a young family is up against. And it makes planning a trip with any degree of certainty pretty difficult. It’s said that the average age of a recreational stalker in the UK is 55, which I’ve no doubt is true; so many of my strolls with the rifle now are evening affairs grasped at any opportunity and often at the last minute. Mornings prove particularly tricky.

Roe deer doyen Richard Prior reckoned the hectic pace of life at home is an “insurmountable obstacle to the highest flights of stalking awareness”. It’s hard to disagree. With time constraints comes pressure that jars with the need to slow yourself down. The temptation is always to go too fast and too far.

Setting sun

So it was with a great sense of luck that at 7 pm on one evening a few weeks back, with both kids snoring away earlier than expected, I found myself glassing the bottom side of a long woodland belt that was sheltered from a lazy north-easterly, a slowly setting sun warming my back.