As we are suffering a severe land shortage this year, and no-one seems able to turn anything up for the club to arrange field meets on, Glynne and myself paid a visit to a possible location for meets with the permission of the resident gamekeeper.

It had been our intention for the keeper to join us, as he had expressed an interest in watching Goshawks work with dogs, but it's a busy time of year for keepers as the shoots keep them occupied full time.

He gave us his blessing, and after agreeing some ground rules, we mapped out a plan.

Tasha, Glynne's Cocker Spaniel bitch, was set off across the fields to the first cover that we were to walk up.

Not five minutes into it, she flushed a rabbit, which Shakira, Glynne's female Finnish Gos, chased a good 500 yards across an open field, where upon she tagged it, but could not hold on.

Glynne, Tasha and I were racing across the field to her, to no avail, and she sat and waited to be called up to the fist.

We pressed onward up a sloping field to the next cover, a small wood that looked promising, and as we walked through, a small Muntjac was flushed...but no slip given. There were several rabbit holes apparent, but as we had no ferrets, we could not explore that possibility on this occasion, but noted the fact for the future.

We then broke this cover, and headed along a large hedgerow which led to a much larger area of cover, which was much denser. There were rides through this cover, so we were able to walk the edges with the bird, while Tasha did her stuff, darting in and out of the wood.

Up to this point, Tasha made several flushes, the Gos chasing very hard and showing a lot of strength of pursuit, shying at nothing, fur or feather!

As we approached the lower edge of the cover, Tasha flushed a pair of pheasant, Glynne slipped the bird, and she elected to give chase to the cock. They disappeared over a hedgerow together, and Glynne and I were stuck...we could not see a way through the hedge, so we just had to fall backward into it and push through, a real bracing experience!!

On the other side, there was no sign of Shakira, and so telemetry was produced and switched on. A signal was quickly picked up, and Glynne proceeded down the sloping field following - I stayed put so that I could see the bigger picture, my telemetry receiver also picking up Shakira.

After getting to the bottom of the field, Glynne disappeared from view briefly, then I heard him calling "Come and look at this!!"...curious, I made my way quickly down the field to where Glynne was pointing..across a stream, some eight feet wide, right on the bank, was Shakira, and the cock pheasant which she had obviously caught and despatched!!

"OK,.." I said "So how you gonna get her back with that pheasant?" I asked - Glynne was clearly wondering the same thing.

After surveying the situation and testing the depth of the water ( some 3' plus deep! ), Glynne decided to shin across some low hanging branches and hope that they would take his weight...rather him than me I thought...that water looks seriously cold!

As Glynne gingerly made his way across, it suddenly occurred to me that I had my phone, and in said phone is a camera..if those branches break, I thought, that would make a terrific picture for the website!!

So after fumbling in my pocket, I produced my phone and was snapping away. Glynne was far too busy wondering if he was actually going to get Shakira back to care...

After some careful manoeuvring, Glynne managed to get Shakira, and pheasant, back up onto his glove, while balancing himself with his stick in the water!

The quandary now was, how was he going to get back across, one handed, with a Gos and her kill?? I was still busy snapping away..

"Right..." he announced.."Get ready, the whole lot is coming over to you!" ..."What??" I said. " I'm going to throw the whole lot onto your side, so you need to make sure she doesn't slide down the bank into the water..".."Oh, OK.." I said..and waited to see how this was going to turn out..

Glynne launched them both across the river as best he could, and they landed on the slope of the bank. and started slipping back.."Grab her!!" Glynne was yelling..

Luckily, I was wearing my glove, and so flopped straight down onto my belly, my gloved hand just reaching Shakira, and I managed to get a grip on the pheasant, which she was not about to let go of, and hauled them up onto the bank safely.

Glynne then managed to get back across, but did suffer a bootfull of water in the process. Nevermind...it could have been a whole lot worse!!

All in all, the bird had around five slips at both fur and feather, and Tasha just didn't stop working! A very good day's hawking!

Enjoy the pics!!

John Tyas

December '09