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[Music]
It's never straight forward going out with Roy. Today we are supposed to be going after
squirrels before the leaves make the drays and impossible runners difficult to see. Roy
and his friend Jim are armed to the teeth with air rifles, full boar rifles and shot
guns.
You can never be over gunned can you, so we've got some air rifles this morning, some shot
guns and a rifle as well. We have been asked to come down and control the squirrels. It's
our yearly squirrel bashing so we've got to try and keep the numbers down here as obviously
they do a lot of damage, one to the woodland and also to the nesting birds as well. So
we just need to remove quite a few of those, so we thought while we are down here and as
we were getting up at some ungodly hour we thought we would make the most of it and see
what else we could account for.
Before the grey we're after reds, don't panic we are talking foxes.
The shepherds been saying that a couple of foxes have been coming in and the lambs are
due out so we are going to tuck up down there and what I want you to do, I'm going to be
facing out this way I want you to look back up the bank because one might come along from
a standing briar further up so if you're ready when they come along there.
For some reason a herd of deer are scooting around us, but they don't stay still enough
for a shot.
They are coming down here.
I don't know why but I am guessing a dog walker has come in along the top and the dog has
probably chased them and spooked them.
Roy repositions just in case they cross the bottom of the valley. Again they are not stopping
for anyone, especially Roy.
See I got into position but they weren't going to stop were they. Couple of young bucks in
there. They were definitely spooked I don't know quite what has been going on up there,
but something has come through and disturbed everything in there. Now we've probably ruined
the foxing, but you should never deviate from the plan.
Back to plan A and foxing, but for a change the call doesn't get a response. Roy wants
to head to the other side of the estate for another squeak before the dog walkers really
start to get the wildlife on edge. This time its the air rifle out of the slip, but it's
the pigeon giving Roy the slip. Eventually he stays still long enough for a shot. Finally,
there is something for our efforts.
Now in woodlands the shotguns make an appearance. We see at least half a dozen drays as we stalk
through it.
Now we have got to get on with the main job which we came here for this morning which
was having a go at the squirrels so it's a shame actually because we were going to try
and do quite a few with the air rifle before we started off with the shotguns, but as we
were stalking through the woods this morning you could see that the squirrels were just
up and away, again they were just very very jumpy this morning so we're going to go and
do some dray bashing and see how we go. You can do it one of two ways you can either have
a dray poking pole which if you are flushing squirrels for birds, yeah, I mean you can
fly female red tails and some fly harris hawks on them if you are poking them out like that
and it can provide really good sport, but you do have to be incredibly careful if you
are flying squirrels with a bird of prey as they do bite quite badly, so this morning
we've not brought the decoy with us because all we're going to do is put a shot through
the dray, that either kills the squirrels in the dray or
at least flushes them and when they start flushing and running through the trees we'll
pick them off so this is just purely a pest control operation this morning. We have just
got to try and get the numbers down before the leaf gets up on the trees.
No nobody home, nobody home, nobody home in that one. That looked quite promising didn't
it, that was a nice fresh one.
Roy allows Jim to have the first shot and he is there to deal with any runners. Not
all drays have anyone at home, but for some there is a rude awakening. Jim is pretty tentative
picking up the squirrels much to the amusement of Roy.
I can't believe that you have been manned out by David.
I didn't see it, David found it.
Why are you holding it like that, honestly it's dead it's not going to hurt you mate.
Honestly look, see this squirrel won't hurt you.
Yeah, lovely.
But with these rodents, once bitten twice and thrice shy and he has the scar to prove
it.
Are you traumatised by that, it must have hurt a lot.
You've no idea and next time you say a squirrel won't hurt you I'll wince in pain cause I
know he will, little whatsit!
The other thing to remember when you are doing this sort of work is that obviously if we
left it any later then the birds would be nesting and there's a chance you could mistake
a dray for a nest up in one of the trees or something like that so really you want to
do it before any of the birds have started laying and just run through. So we are sort
of pushing it now in another few weeks you really wouldn't want to be doing it.
The most Roy has had out of the wood is 15 so for a short morning we haven't done too
badly, especially as Jim has all his fingers.