Country Diary

A late stubble offers the chance to relive teenage adventures, but when cold bites and pigeons fly on, one realises that those days have gone

Iused to kill sackfuls of woodpigeons. Pigeon shooting filled my world, and I longed for the dusting days of late summer when stubbles were cleared and the birds would come sledging down to my handmade paper decoys. We used to call pigeons ‘doos’ back then, although I don’t hear the word used much nowadays. I was 15 years old, and I would lie in the whinns and watch the doos arrive in flights of four and five against a backdrop of rough grass and blue hills.

I would shoot from dawn to dusk, and

I’d happily endure long spells of four and more hours without firing a shot or seeing a bird. New thrills were uncovered with every trip. A hawk ambushed my decoys; wild grey partridges scuttled along the yellow rigs; adders lay in tangled clumps around the dyke-foots.

One hot day in August, I broke my cover to gather a shot bird and found another coming in. I hit this second and then a third as I stood barefoot in the ribbons of stubble. I was breaking every law of camouflage and concealment; the birds could see me and they were just coming in anyway. I sat down on the open field and shot 12 brace in half an hour, marvelling at their crazy enthusiasm. Then suddenly it was over and the spell was broken. The birds were stand-offish again and I had to pinch myself to be sure I hadn’t dreamed it all.

I plucked the pigeons and sold them to the pub in the village. Nothing was wasted, but then school returned and the hot days were gone. Nowadays, most local farms have moved away from chancy crops like barley around these parts. The best fields are down in grass, and there is nothing to feed a shoal of hungry birds.

Clattering wings

My teenage adventures are a thing of the past in this part of Galloway, but as part of an experiment to encourage hares and grey partridges, I grew cereals for myself this year. I let the crops stand, then I cut them in late October. Within hours, they were filled with clattering blue wings again. Passing by, I watched the birds sliding in to the fallen crop and I found myself reliving some flares of glory from my teenage years. On the spur of the moment, I dug out a sack of old decoys and spread them out again last week before the cold breeze of coming rain. I could hardly deny myself a brace of birds for the pot, remembering that conservation often yields a pleasant bit of sport.

The birds came again, and I rose to kill them. But I’m out of practice, and my shot flew past them in wide margins of error. There followed a lull of half an hour and my brain wandered back to work. A pigeon came and flared away and I was so distracted that the moment passed without an attempt. There was a time when this would have fouled me with frustration, but I merely shrugged. Then I began to grow cold and uncomfortable, battered by rain and a chill breeze. I lasted an hour after the smirr began, then I gathered my brace and walked back to the house, telling myself that I couldn’t waste an entire working day on a bit of fun. Thinking this, it dawned on me that I have turned out to be one of those boring, sensible people I used to despise when I was a boy — people for whom life was about more than pigeon shooting.

I went home and worked at my desk for the rest of that afternoon, and very little good it did me. When twilight came, I realised that the day had been wasted, and I couldn’t ignore the certain fact that if my teenage self could see me now, he would be disgusted.

Patrick Laurie manages a programme to promote farming and conservation, with a particular focus on wading birds and black grouse, and runs a farm in Galloway.

Patrick Laurie reckons his younger self would be less than impressed with his recent showing