Fabulous Fenland Pheasants

Mary Bremner joins a wild bird shoot in the Lincolnshire Fens and although the bag was small, the birds were certainly sporting

- Mary Bremner

The Lincolnshire Fens can be a bleak place in winter and are renowned for being completely flat. You can see for miles, there’s barely a tree in sight, but the stark landscape is strangely attractive. As the landscape is so flat you can see anyone or anything coming, there’s no hiding out here. With this in mind you'd expect it's not the sort of environment to get good shooting, but you’d be surprised. The Lincolnshire Fens is well know for wild bird pheasant shoots and for how well they fly.

Richard's day

Richard Bailey’s shoot near Spalding is no exception. His shoot covers up to 400 acres and is run by Leon Smith, who also has the shooting rights over the farm. When Richard retired from farming he handed the shoot to Leon with the proviso that his rent would be Leon putting on one day a year for him. Today is Richard’s annual day. For the last three years this group of Guns has joined Richard and Leon for the annual shoot. They don’t expect to shoot many birds, usually between 30 and 40, but they enjoy the fact the birds are wild and the craic between the team.

As a rule, the Guns only shoot the cock birds to preserve the hens and encourage breeding. However, as an exception, Richard specified that hens could be shot – the first time for seven years. “I think we have too many older hens that are pushing the young ones out,” Richard told me. "So the cocks are mating with the older, infertile hens and numbers are dropping.” Some of the Guns were unsure about this because it was quite an unusual call to make, but Richard is an experienced shoot owner and I suspected he was right.