A WINGSHOOTING PARADISE
Gamebird hunting in British East Africa
MY FATHER WAS born in 1925, on Sindlesham Farm near Wokingham, Berkshire. His father, a superb shotgunner, introduced him to wingshooting at an early age, and Dad would accompany him on syndicate shoots.
From my father’s manuscript:
“When I was old enough to handle a shotgun, father bought me a .410 double barrelled shotgun, he gave me one box of cartridges and told me that these were the only shells he would ever buy me and that I could shoot rabbits, pigeons and wildfowl and sell them for cash at Bracknell market each week, and so keep me in ammunition. Father was as good as his word, so I was very careful not to waste any ammunition, which probably improved my shooting in the long run.
I went to Bradfield College which was situated in the heart of game country, pheasants and partridges everywhere, also the river Pang, which was full of brown trout, flowed through the college grounds. During the winter months we poached the game whenever the gamekeeper’s back was turned; as we wore gowns and mortarboards the game was easily concealed. We also poached trout from the waters adjacent to the college waters.
I was caught red handed one day on a Sunday afternoon. A gentleman, whose face was rather familiar, persuaded me to get into his car and took me straight to Lord Illife’s mansion at Basildon. I was ushered into the lounge where the Lord and Lady were having afternoon tea. I received a severe dressing down. I apologised and promised never to do it again and they then invited me to join them for tea. I learned that their guest, the man who had caught me poaching was none other than Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of England!”
WWII INTERRUPTED COLLEGE and, like most youngsters at the time, my father ‘took the King’s Shilling’ and joined the Royal Navy – without grandfather’s permission as father was under-age. On returning from the war, father was devastated to find that my grandfather had sold the farm. Disgusted, he left England for Kenya and
joined an agricultural settlement scheme that benefitted ex-servicemen.
After completing an agricultural course at Egerton College, he married my mother in 1948. They settled on virgin land in Trans Nzoia near Mount Elgon in northwest Kenya, an area called the Endebess Flats, which teemed with game such as topi, Jacksons hartebeest, zebra, waterbuck, roan, common reedbuck, oribi, duiker and Rothschilde giraffe. There were plenty of guineafowl, red-winged francolin, speckled and green pigeons and yellow-billed duck.
Dad owned a Cogswell & Harrison 12-bore s/s which I later inherited. This and a Springfield .30-06 kept our larder filled with venison and gamebirds – only on special occasions did we have chicken on the table. As the area developed, dams were built for irrigation and for watering livestock; these attracted ducks and geese from miles around.
I was born and raised in this environment and from an early age I was introduced to guns, hunting, shooting and fishing. Dad graduated to dangerous game, became an honorary game-warden and started doing problem animal control in our area, mainly elephant and buffalo. Later he became a professional hunter, but he pursued his love for bird-shooting with a group of good friends when time and circumstances allowed.
LIKE ALL COLONIAL farm boys, when I was eight or nine, my father bought me a BSA Club .177 underlever air rifle. I kept myself in pellets by hammering the mousebirds and bulbuls plundering our orchards. My mother and our neighbour paid 50 cents per tail. Dad bought my 8-year-old brother a Gecado 27 break-barrel .177 air rifle and we became a formidable team.
When I was ten my father bought me a second-hand Greener 20-bore hammer gun with absurdly long barrels. When he took me on shoots, he allowed me no live ammunition; I first had to demonstrate that I could safely handle the gun and display correct gun manners. Under father’s tutorship, the first bird I shot flying was a common quail. I was hooked. I began shooting with the syndicate and as my confidence grew, I was tasked with shooting for the pot on the farm.
I almost shot my foot off with this gun. With my small hands, I had to be extra careful when de-cocking the hammer. When gently lowering it onto the firing pin, it slipped from under my thumb and discharged the gun – a major wake up call for me. My father sold the Greener and bought me a Berretta 20-bore over-under which fitted me like a glove and was a delight to shoot. I learned ‘instinctive shooting’ with this gun, but as I grew, it became too short for me, hence was passed on to my brother. Dad then bought me a Miroku 12-bore over-under and himself a Browning B25 12-bore. The Cogswell was retired as it was shot “off the face”. Later, we had it repaired and refurbished in England.
While at boarding-school in Nairobi, I joined the rifle club, shooting BSA Martini-action .22s at the school’s 50m range, and Lee Enfield .303s for interschool matches at the army’s Ngong Hills range. A keen birder, I joined the ornithology club, which had close ties with the Coryndum Museum (later the Nairobi National Museum) whose curator was ornithologist John Williams – his son was at school with me. We collected specimens for the museum and the school collection. We learned how to skin and mount them for display.
from an early age I was introduced to guns
John Williams gave us projects to collect specimens during our school holidays. Coming from western Kenya, my task was to collect barbets, which I shot with my air rifle or my father’s Krico .22LR loaded with dust shot. I used my shotgun with number 9 shot to collect scarce mottled and Nyanza swifts which were much needed by the museum. This improved my shooting considerably.
As I grew into my teens, I went on many shoots with my father who consistently demonstrated that he was the best shot among his sporting associates. It was important to me to be accepted into the shooting fraternity which I think I achieved through good shooting. About this time we were introduced to clay pigeon and skeet shooting. I enjoyed it and became quite good at it, but my father was never enthusiastic – after all, you can’t eat clays.
We kept a game book and recorded the details of all our shoots, including the location, names of the guns participating and the number of each species bagged, along with observations about the weather, ground conditions, bird numbers and quality of shooting. Mainly we shot duck and geese on local dams, but attended some big shoots on the Rift Valley lakes such as Lake Sergoit, Lake Olbolosset and Lake Solai. While yellow-billed duck were by far the highest in number, we also bagged migratory ducks including garganey teal, pintail, southern pochard, northern shoveller, tufted duck and common teal. Compared with the number of ducks bagged, spurwing, Egyptian geese and comb duck (knobbies) were fairly scarce.
INTERESTINGLY, IN THE 1940s and ’50s, we shot southern pochard in big numbers, but these rapidly diminished in the early ’60s. This was attributed to the construction of Kariba Dam which lies on their north/south migratory flight path. In the mid-1960s, the same was true of migratory ducks coming south from Europe and Russia. The theory was that the birds were stopping off at the newly completed Aswan Dam on the Nile River.
Driven guineafowl shoots were very popular among the farmers. Ten to twelve guns were the norm; shoots took place over two or three farms and involved several pre-planned drives. Most participants were experienced shotgunners, but there were always one or two who had to be watched. One incident, often repeated, involved the Duke of Manchester. An inexperienced gun standing next to him shot across the line and nearly hit the Duke, who shouted at him, “Hey, you bloody idiot, don’t you realise that I am Royal Game!”
In the east, our farming community in the Cherangani Mountains at 11 000 feet formed the west wall of the Rift Valley. In their upper reaches, primary forest of podo, cedar, teak, fig and wild olive trees supported a healthy population of olive or rameron pigeons. Every morning, the birds would fly down the Moiben valley to Richard Lether’s farm where a lick contained minerals which I presume assist the birds to digest the fruits they eat. Red-fronted parrots in smaller numbers also flew to the lick so
one had to be careful, as the parrots were of similar size and are strong fliers.
These pigeon shoots were great sport. The records show that at one shoot in 1967, six guns together bagged 171 birds. None was wasted; apart from taking home many ourselves we gave the rest to clinics, schools and hospitals within the community. This was common practice with all game animals and birds, as it was a much appreciated source of protein. My mother cooked the pigeons in a devilled sauce; I still use this recipe for pigeons and other wildfowl.
Hastily arranged quail shoots were common, particularly in wheat stubble. These were mostly Harlequin quail, but we sometimes encountered blue quail, which we tried to avoid shooting, as they were scarce. Quail are notorious for being around one day and gone the next.
During trips to the dry northern parts of the country we shot chestnut-bellied sandgrouse and black-faced sandgrouse as they flew to waterholes in the mornings. Deep fried they were delicious. Opportunistically, we would shoot vulturine guineafowl, which were much better eating than the common helmeted guineafowl.
MOST FARMERS HAD gundogs, mainly Labradors or golden retrievers, considered the best all-rounders for our kind of shooting. Some dogs were better than others, and an owner soon discovered whether his dog was welcome on a shoot or not. I had many chuckles listening to the language used by fellow shooters when chastising their dogs.
My favourite dog was a black Labrador bitch named Pintail, a wonderful retriever – provided you were gentle and encouraging. She loved being praised. She would not work for my father; I think his language had something to do with it. She would go on strike, sit, lift her nose in the air and look in the opposite direction. This is how she became my dog. My father loved springer spaniels, which he tried for a while, but they were unsuitable for our rough shooting. It was my job to deburr their coats, which in some instances was impossible. One had to cut out lumps of hair to remove the burrs, which left the dog appearing to have some sort of disease. It was not fair on them. Dad eventually settled on golden retrievers which he trained himself.
In 1968, due to Kenya’s post-independence land redistribution programme, Dad had to sell the farm, and I left for England. My father continued hunting professionally until he left for England in 1973. He then hunted out of Juba, in Sudan, mainly into the Central African Republic, but out of season he was based in England. To supplement his income he shot wood pigeons professionally on the Wiltshire Downs. In 1976, I joined him on one of his shoots, serving as his retriever. I watched him shoot 68 birds with 75 rounds in a fair wind. I have never seen shooting like that before or since.