A Reward In Itself

Patrick Galbraith heads across the Irish Sea to a Purdey awardwinning shoot and finds some fine pheasants in torrential weather

- Patrick Galbraith

Somewhere in front of us, across the Irish Sea, I was told there was an extraordinary view, but torrential rain and a biting, squally wind had reduced visibility to no more than 100 yards.

David Sandford was not pleased. He is a man who quite rightly is tremendously proud of what he’s achieved on his pioneering shoot in County Down and this was a far cry from the sort of day to show it at its best.

Three years previously — reportedly in rather better weather — David had welcomed another set of English visitors who were interested in his shoot. “We were very lucky when the Purdey judges came, they actually saw a wild covey of English partridges,” he recalls.

As far as David is aware, the group of greys that scuttled off into the verge that day “was the first instance of the birds breeding successfully in Northern Ireland” since they were officially declared extinct as a breeding species in 1992.

The journey to revive native partridges on the Sandfords’ 220-acre farm at Port Loughan started in 2014 when David retired and was looking for a project. “I’ve been a shooting man all my life,” he said over a cup of coffee by the fire in his old barn, “and I decided it was time to put something back.”

Truly wild

Many decades ago, David remembers standing in the yard and watching a strong covey of Englishmen lift and whistle away over the fields. It was the last time David saw truly wild greys at his home and he says, wistfully, that the scene has been painted in his mind ever since, inspiring him to try and restore what was lost.

Given the bird’s extinct status, he had to get permission from the Northern Irish equivalent of Natural England to reintroduce the greys and it was only granted after the GWCT assessed David’s ground and decided he wasn’t on a hiding to nothing.