Mirri wondering why I bought along the pointy thing, rather than the 12 bore, when he thought we were going hunting....
Sunday's enetertainment started when I spotted a few birds in a tree out in a big clear-cut as I drove into our hunting area. I drove on a few hundred meters past them then got out and carefully went back to try to shoot one – leaving Mirri in the car. I was laying in the snow to take the shot and suddenly had this heavy breathing in my left ear! The bloody dog had climbed over into the back seat pushed the door open and crept up on me and there he was crouched at my left shoulder in the snow focussed intently in the direction I was aiming (and panting in my ear) – scared the hell out of me…… I don’t think he could have seen the bird, it was 200m away, so I guess he was just “seconding” me. I told him to stay, calmed my heart rate back down a bit and shot the bird. The dog didn’t move. More surprising, when I took the shot maybe as many as 100 blackcock lifted from the ground and the trees behind the one I shot and flew directly over us about 10m up. He still didn’t move. Better still, once I took the rifle out of battery and stood to go collect the bird I noticed the birds had sat down about 200m behind us so we walked maybe 5 steps, I told him to sit and stay again, lay down and shot another blackcock. Again he stayed down. We then got up and I let him find the two birds. I shot a 3rd one with him later on. It was a good day but no caper, and not much snow yet.....
A couple of birds and a fine dog
