Blackcock Tales
I read Rosie Nickerson’s article (A right royal caper, May issue) with great interest and would like to comment on the claim that Count Jan Lewenhaupt is probably the only man to have shot a right-andleft of blackcock.
When shooting driven grouse on Burnhope Moor, near Alston, County Durham, on 6 December 1991 with the Swedish shooting club Tuppaskytteföreninga, together with Stuart Burton, owner of the Bracken Bank Estate in Lazonby, Penrith, one of the guns, Per Bollvik, shot two right-and-lefts of blackcock in succession and P-H Adolfson shot a right-and-left of blackcock followed immediately by a single blackcock on the same drive.
At that time there was a lot of blackgame on Burnhope Moor, especially on the lower areas of the moor. The rights-and-lefts were witnessed by most of the guns, including Baron Carl von Essen, standing in the grouse butts higher up on the moor.
The moors were sold some years later and since then we have not heard about the blackgame and grouse population there. Uno Magnusson, Norra Fågelås, Sweden