End of Season Black Powder Pheasants

It was a bright January day up on the farm on the high ground south of the Tyne Valley.

We’d had a lot of rain recently, so I was glad of the light wind and blue sky. It was below zero as I set off carrying the battered old gun I’d been given by a mate when my own, bought nearly fifty years ago, broke a firing pin. The gifted gun had been neglected over the years, That’s why I’d started re-loading cartridges with light, black powder loads; an ounce of shot and the same volume of black powder. I made them with a dowel, an accurate scale, and a home made de-capping tool.

I worked my way uphill carrying the gun with half a dozen home made cartridges in my pocket. The reeds and bog crunched as I tripped on the tufts scanning the fell for signs of cock pheasants. My boot broke through the frozen surface mush, and underneath the ground was sodden. It was steep, hard going. Heat built inside my extra layers, so I put down the battered side by side, and just as I opened my jacket, a gaudy cock bird, burst out of a tussock squawking, and he battered away like a raucous rocket. I snatched up the gun, and fired, and when the smoke cleared, he was well away. Too late.

I walked on towards the southern boundary, the low winter sun making me squint at the reedy tussocks, hoping to catch sight of a bright coloured head poking out of the greenery, but all I put up was a lonely snipe. I unloaded and went through a metal gate to try another patch.

Paddling and crunching my way across the boggy ten acre, hope was flagging, when just as I came to a strip of cover, between a tumble-down wall and wire fence, a cock burst up into the dazzling sun, and then swung west, so that for a moment, I could see him. I fired the half choke barrel, venting a cloud of stinking smoke, and he folded in slow motion, crashing down in the next field. He never moved again - not a flap. I had him and could go home satisfied even if I didn’t get another chance.

I skirted the wall up to the gate and came back down the other side to pick him up; a good cock pheasant, and well hit. Maybe I should get the chokes opened up a bit. The old gun might put more in the pot for fewer shots.

I walked back towards the house across another patch of fell, putting up snipe, hen pheasants, a hare, and a lone partridge, all of which I left alone.

I planned to have a snack with the old man who has spent sixty-four years working this patch of fell and pasture. When we meet up he passes on the tales of how it was back in the day, and the antics of the characters he has known.

So - after An hour of drinking tea, and a sandwich by the wood burner, I am back out and hoping for another chance, so I wander down the wooded valley below the house, past the iced up duck pond.

Descending along the burn, I saw him running along the slope, out of range as he spread his wings and flew. I’ve seen him before and I know he haunts the thicket I’d spooked him from, so I made up my mind that he’d probably come back if I waited for him. I walked a little further and positioned myself in the fading daylight, under a pine tree, my back to the trunk, so I had a good view of the space in front, and settled down to wait.

The cold was cutting in.  I zipped my jacket to the collar and tightened my scarf, the minutes ticking by to over half an hour. I was glad of the cap; the winter evening setting in hard. It would be a heavy frost tonight. Moving slowly to avoid advertising my position, I glanced at my watch. Five more minutes and I’d call it a day - wander back up to the farm, and count myself satisfied with a single bird. Then the sound of wing beats. He was coming home.

I stood, tense and still, straining every sense to pick him up, and then he was there, gliding over the trees, dropping fast to his favourite roost - off to the left and thirty five yards away. I mounted the gun, swung through him and gave him the full choke barrel; a shove of black powder recoil; a boom rather than a crack; the view instantly obscured by sulphurous smoke, but as the report died away, even though I could not yet see him, I knew that he was down from the sound of flapping wings on the ground. I flipped the safety on, and stepped forward and there he was, rolling down the slope towards the tiny burn that runs through the wood. He was quiet and still on the bank before I got there.

It was a good end to the season. A perfect day.