Saturday was P day.   Or Poult* day to be more precise.   Up with the lark (well, at 6 anyway), which is generally not a civilised time to be up and about.  Breakfasted and in the car by a quarter to 7.   Quite pleased with myself.

Shoot captain had said to be at the game farm at 7, so I called to see where he was.   'Erm, not quite left Pewsey yet' was the response.   Pathetic.

The pheasant pens were down a dusty track in the middle of a large field.   There must have been a dozen or so, many interlinked, all with roosting boxes at one end, feeders and a straw covered outside area for the birds.  All the pens were enclosed with wire at the sides and a netting above,  conveniently at shoulder height for your correspondent.

We went in with 8 crates for about 250 birds, two made a desperate bid for freedom through the temporarily open gate.   They got about 40 feet before the dog caught up with them.  

We crouched down and the game farm staff caught 'our' birds and held them for us to apply leg rings before stuffing them in the crates.   10 minutes later we had them loaded in the trailer and away we went.  Not even 7.45.   The leg rings will allow us to determine whether we are shooting our birds, wild birds, or someone elses!

The idea with putting in poults is that you get them in as early as possible to allow them to familiarise themselves with the new environment and not all fly away immediately.   We topped up all the feeders, filled the water troughs, closed the pop holes and left them to it.   Now we babysit them for a month, watching for sparrowhawks and foxes (the sooner the adjacent wheat is cut, the better.... ) and hope we manage to keep them on our land.

So, on the day of the Glorious Twelfth, we have made a start on this season's shooting - time for a bit of clay practice I think!

* Poult:  young pheasant