fancy pheasants

     tiger and i killed thirty eight one day - most walked up over dogs, some driven out of the crops planted on his chester county property.  we'd always set fifty as our goal, but never achieved it.  that sounds like a lot of birds - and it is - but not when compared to driven pheasants in the u.k.

i had the good fortune  to be invited - by people i didn't really know, but came to like immensely - to join a line of eight guns for a week's driven pheasant shooting - one day of grouse thrown in - for two successive years, shooting from birdsall house in north yorkshire, the home of lord and lady middleton - michael and janet.

after my enthusiastic acceptance i learned it was to be a formal occasion - i.e  black tie dinners and double guns only.  i didn't own one, let alone two, of the afore mentioned, but was lucky enough to win a rather grand sum at the dice tables in the summer before my first trip, purchased a pair of beretta over and unders [barely acceptable]...and arrived in yorkshire so armed.

birdsall house was a grand old victorian pile set in the netherlands of north yorkshire. upon arrival we were presented with a schedule for the week:  "arrival at birdsall & tea - 2000 [hrs.] dinner at birdsall" etc. and what i particularly enjoyed [in classic british understatement] "please be punctual as the daylight hours for shooting are few at this time of year and we should be prompt."  being seated on her ladyship's right at the table for twenty was an honor only muted by the fact i couldn't stir until she did.  "dressing" for dinner proved not the chore i expected - after all one had to wear something after a day's shooting and a hot bath....

i made a few mistakes in my two years' shooting at birdsall - which, i suspect had something to do with my not being asked back.  on the first drive in the first year i killed a pheasant, which my host - next to me - had "pricked" [another expression i love], behind him.  he glared at me.  "not done," he said.  "not done," he repeated.  the next year i refused an invitation to a piano recital pleading family obligations whereupon my brother, in front of all my shooting friends, arrived to pick me up in an old, balky austin motorcar which we had to push down the hill to get started once he'd said his hellos.  after that i had the good [?] fortune on one drive to kill as high a pheasant as i think possible which fell in the midst of his lordship's prized charolais cattle causing them to moo in horror and semi stampede. there was also considerable murmuring amongst the beaters and gamekeeping staff.  lastly, in what was probably the high point of my shooting career, with my host's wife at my elbow for verification, i killed seventeen pheasants with seventeen cartridges at a reasonably difficult stand [the birds came circling from right to left just below the brow of a little hill in front of me] on the last drive of the day, in the gloaming.

i guess the lesson learned is don't ever show up your host.  oh, and on our high day we killed 259 - not great but well in excess of tiger's and my longstanding target.