The variety show
Richard Faulks reports on a shoot on the edge of the Fens that is full of delight and surprises
Some of you may remember reading about Dan Parker’s gamekeeping in an earlier edition of Sporting Gun. Dan also featured in an article about shooting from a seated position, where he took sage advice from J P Gaudin of seatedgun.com ( June 2021). Both Dan and J P lost mobility through motorcycle accidents and they both have a love of game shooting. Both worked out ways of not letting their disability stop them from participating in our sport and both would embarrass the majority of Guns in any line with the quality of their shooting.
Back in the summer of 2021, Dan took me on a guided tour of the wild bird shoot that he keepers on the edge of the East Anglian Fens. The shoot is blessed with a variety of landscapes and habitats, which provide safe havens for not only gamebirds but for a plethora of waterfowl and native farmland birds. I was lucky enough to be invited back to join Dan and his team of helpers and beaters to see how the year’s hard work delivered on a driven day. I wasn’t disappointed.
The three days that Dan works so hard for all year are ‘friends and family’ days. Dan has two guns on each day – one for himself where he back-guns to finish off pricked birds and one for one of his helpers. Adam and Tom Parker (Dan’s brother and father) both get a day along with Ashley Rolfe to thank them for their help filling up the feeders, which is the only job that Dan can’t manage on his own. No money ever changes hands and it’s as close to an old-fashioned farm shoot day as you can get with, the Guns, assorted family members and the beating team all mingling together.
Dan arrived in his Freelander and transferred to his Polaris Ace, which had been converted to hand control (by Chris Dawney). It took a long time to decide on the best vehicle to use for shoot days and he took advice from a fellow shooter who has similar loss of mobility. Sitting on the usual saddle-style seat of a quad bike wouldn’t provide sufficient support for Dan, but with a great deal of effort he managed to source a vehicle with a more traditional-style car seat – so it’s a sort of hybrid quad/buggy, but it provides everything that Dan needs in terms of support and off-road capability.
He certainly can cover some ground in the Polaris and can get into position well before the Guns have had time to walk across a field to their pegs.
After a pretty standard briefing, peg numbers were drawn and the day got under way. The first drive, Poplar Tree, was a stone’s throw away from the farmyard, where everybody congregated for coffee and bacon rolls when they arrived. Dan handed radios out to Tom and Adam, and they ran the
“It only takes the slightest disturbance to clear a cover and ruin the drive”
beating line throughout the day, under Dan’s supervision from behind the gun line, while Ashley shot in the line. Wild pheasants and partridges are far spookier than your average reared bird and good coordination would be needed if there was going to be any chance of getting the birds over the line.
No guarantee
The location of the birds can vary greatly from day to day, and there is no guarantee that because you saw birds in a particular location the day before, they will still be there. It only takes the slightest disturbance to clear a cover and ruin the drive.
I stuck near Dan for the first two drives to see how he worked the beating line and
how he shot from his quad with his new custom-made gun stock from TSK. Dan was constantly on the radio and mobile phone while the beaters were working their way to the cover crops, blanking-in fields and hedgerows. His intimate knowledge of the land was obvious and he ran a tight ship.
As the beaters entered the cover and the birds began to fly, Dan swapped into shooter mode, and his shooting was very impressive. A disadvantage of the Polaris is that the seat doesn’t have enough adjustment to allow Dan to shoot with both hands as he would for clays in his wheelchair. So he had one hand to support his upper body and then shot his gun single-handed. The new hand-moulded gun stock made all the difference and was something discussed with J P Gaudin at Churchill’s shooting ground. Dan shot some fantastic birds, but his main aim was to finish off any pricked birds before they crossed the river behind the line of Guns and on to the neighbouring land.
Roughly half of the drives on the farm are typical cover-crop drives; the other half are based around a complex of gravel pits, and the wildfowl on these is spectacular. Dan regularly sees huge numbers of the more common species – greylag, Canada geese, mallard, teal and wigeon. He’s also seen redcrested pochard (there are only reported to be around 20 breeding pairs in the UK, but Dan counted more than that on just one of the pits last year), snipe, woodcock, goosanders, Egyptian geese, hen harriers and ospreys. It really is a haven for wildlife and Dan’s effort keeping the vermin under control certainly plays a part in the quantity of wildlife.
The second drive was 14 Acre and was one of the drives set in the maze of gravel
pits and the access roads around them. We were positioned by an abandoned road roller, which will be well known to many carp fishermen, a little way from the gun line on this drive. We were unsighted to the Guns, but we did spot one of the highest ducks I’ve ever seen come down. It was the shot of the day.
The variety of the drives on this shoot was impressive and the shooting in and around the gravel pits varied and challenging. You’re as likely to get a greylag over you as you are to get a pheasant, so the Guns have to be on their mettle and concentrate.
Hit and miss
When I asked Dan how he thought the day had gone, he said: “It went reasonably well; two of the drives were a bit hit-and-miss, and I think that a couple of the drives were disturbed in the morning. Boat Yard drive went particularly well.”
Dog walkers are a bit of a problem at times. And there was still plenty of stubble around, so the birds were wandering around more than Dan would have liked. Some hard frosts would help things for the next shoot. By the end of the day, the Guns had been treated to six drives – Poplar Tree, 14 Acre, Boat Yard, Duck Pit, Fletton and Low Level. And there were a couple of drives left for next time, though as Dan explained: “It may just be one hen bird each on some of the drives later in the year to protect the stock.”
The resident grey partridges were seen on Boat Yard drive, but luckily they were heading back over the beaters, which pleased Dan as he had spent a great deal of time encouraging and protecting them.
The shoot is a perfectly run, close-knit traditional farm shoot and the relationship Dan has with the Freeman family (the landowners) is very supportive.
“They back me all the way,” he told me. In return, Dan provides them with some great sport. George Freeman told me in the three to four years that Dan has been keepering on the farm that “he’s turned it into a real shoot and he’s certainly worked his magic”.
Job done
The bag for the day was 61, which included 10 ducks and two pigeons. “The partridges gave us the swerve today,” said Dan. The target was to get 60 head, so it was job done. They were all off to have roast beef and drinks in the shoot room, which was provided for all the Guns and beaters along with a game of snooker. All of the birds were divided up among the team and nothing went to waste.