Four and Twenty Black Birds

First published in Irish Country Sports & Country Life Magazine, 2010

By the time you read this spring will have sprung and the season will be gone. My rabbiting work has almost finished apart from a few ferreting days still on the calendar, and a couple of nights ago I had what will probably be my last night of lamping, as it appears the rabbits have begun breeding in this area at least. In some other places I hunt they will breed a little later, and other areas there will have been squeakers (young rabbits) on the ground for a few weeks now. It’s that great mystery of rabbits. Here one year, gone the next, numbers rising and falling like Wall Street prices. They are questions only Mother Nature knows the answer to. By all accounts I have thoroughly enjoyed the rabbiting this year, although I ferreted probably less than I have in the past few years and had perhaps one day a week as opposed to two and three days per week as was the normal! I upped my lamping activities however, and my last night out was by far the most enjoyable of the season. I had my young protégé Fudge with me and we drove to some ground about an hour away. I wasn’t holding out much hope for a good night’s lamping, but I was in for a surprise. By this time of year the rabbits are well educated, or what we call “Lamp Shy” knowing full well that a beam of light means trouble and striking so much as a match within 100yrds of them sends them flying across the fields at full speed! I won’t bore you with the details but we had a right old do and arrived back at the truck about two hours later with 15 rabbits and some exciting runs to look back on. We walked a few miles and only caught a few before getting onto the good ground were we really had some fun! This field was where young Fudge caught her first ever rabbit, and that was the last time I lamped it. Tonight we got over the gate and a quick flick with the lamp revealed numerous amber eyes looking back! Fudge quickly tore up the soaking wet ground in hot pursuit of one of the many and it went straight through the hedge and she went through after it. I had no choice but to shine the lamp through the hole as she went and could just about make her out coming back with a rabbit by the “scruff” as she likes to carry them! But it wasn’t over yet. As I relieved her of her catch I swung the lamp round and there were several squatters dotted over the field, she missed the first and caught the second, I then realised I hadn’t dispatched the first I was so busy lamping and ended up holding both rabbits in one hand as she chased a third across the field! As she returned with it I could see another squatter sitting just out of the light and tried my best keep it there as I knew if it got up Fudge would drop the one in her mouth to chase it! I just about managed to get the third off her and quickly light up a fourth squatter which she also caught, now my trouble really began! Two rabbits in my hand, a lamp in the other, a rabbit below my arm and Fudge with another at my feet! I set the lamp down and dispatched the pair in my hands while carefully keeping one below my arm and my foot on Fudges rabbit. I then dispatched the third and fourth and sat down with Fudge a minute or two as whatever rabbits were there had long gone. What a crazy couple of minutes it was. I was sure these rabbits had never seen a light since our last foray in this field! Eventually we moved on, walked another few miles and caught another seven, getting good runs in nearly every field. But we missed plenty of rabbits as well. Of course it would be easy for me to sit here and tell you I caught 20, 30 or even 40! But what would be point? The only person I would be kidding would me myself. I have plenty of days and nights when I catch little or nothing, but I don’t write about them because it wouldn’t make much of an article! The night before Fudge and I caught those rabbits I was out with my other bitch Molly who run very badly for whatever reasons. We only caught 5 rabbits in 4 hours and she ended up tearing her ear very badly, covering herself, me, the van and the utility room in blood and it was 2 o’clock on the morning before I got her sorted out and cleaned up. So it’s not all big bags and great nights!

What else does a Rabbit enthusiast get up to when he isn’t Rabbiting? Well my activities don’t stop at Rabbits; I enjoy everything including a spot of hunting with my good friends from the Sunnyland Beagles. I don’t get out a much as I would like as the meets are usually quite far for me but I always manage to make a few and this season made it to Tuam in Galway with them for a couple of days. I set off 4.00am away back in early October last year and arrived literally just in time for breakfast. After a few cups of coffee to wash down a great fry up, we made for our hunting ground for the day. It was a sunny morning as we arrived and despite the heat the Hounds didn’t take long before rising Sally out of the bog. The action was non stop all morning and a few locals arrived along with some other followers throughout the morning. A fox broke the cover at one point and the hounds got onto his line pretty sharp, but sly as ever he slipped away before they got too close! We arrived back at the house in the early evening and Ally, Phil, David and I got gathered up around the fire for a few beers and plenty of craic before dinner and were soon followed by Liz, John Shaw and Jill who were following the Rugby on the radio. Phil whips in to the Trinity Foot and South Herts and was over for a few days. I always enjoy catching up with him since I met him at the Kennels a couple of years, a great fellow and always full of stories and craic, and such an enthusiast Beagler too. The following morning, the lads pushed their frozen socks and cold Blazers for another meet at the Dr’s house. With quite a turn out and the arrival of the Limerick based Pallaskenry Beagles we were in for a good days sport. Before the meet, the Dr said a few words about the recent and very sad death of John Pickering quoted as being “one of Irish foxhunting’s witty raconteurs and colourful characters.  In his career he hunted the East Down Foxhounds, the Golden Vale Foxhounds, the Oriel Harriers, and was whipper-in and huntsman to the legendary Master of the Bermingham and North Galway Foxhounds, the late Lady Molly Cusack-Smith”. (Taken from Fox Hunting Life) Originally from Warwickshire, John settled in Tuam and was very well known there both in the hunting and wider community. The hunt got underway and I thought I had De Ja Vu as the hounds put up a Hare in the same field, on the same patch of cover as last year and it run the exact same way, probably the same Hare! Round and round they went until she lost them good and proper, and eventually they got back onto the same field and put out a fox right out of the same cover! He was trotting along ahead in no great rush and coming right towards me until someone behind on the road called “There’s a fox” and he swung a left, over a wall and away! I felt like shouting back, did you see the fox?  It would have been a great photo if they would have kept quiet, because he couldn’t see me where I was. The sport continued all morning and I got talking later in the days to another retired Huntsman from England who now lives in Tuam. What a character he was! I can’t remember his name or who he hunted with and wish I had of written it down after. I had almost two hours of stories of Fox, Otter and Stag hunting of yesteryear. The day rolled on and I had to leave for home, unfortunately I couldn’t stay to Monday as much as I wanted to, so it was back on the N17 with filling station coffee and Beagling memories until I finally arrived home. The next meet I attended was only a few days ago and my better half tagged along for the first time. I had not been to this particular meet before and it was in a well known Northern Ireland private estate. Due to the woods and trees we couldn’t see a lot of action but we could certainly hear it and as we stood on a long lane adjacent to some trees, a very nicely marked Hare walked up to us and stopped for a good look, before slipping below the gate and zig zagging her way across the field, at a leisurely pace! Hares always look so relaxed, like there not even trying. We saw a few more Hares and I caught up with a few faces I hadn’t seen in a while and probably spent more time talking than anything! I heard on the grapevine there was a certain boy who’s name we wont mention (Tommy) who didn’t turn up as he danced so many young ladies round the dance floor in Ballymena the night before his knees were sore! That’s an excuse if ever I heard one!

Just recently I was reading an article in some magazine or other about Rooks and Rook pie and the author was waxing about Rook pie this and Rook Pie that and I doubt he ever ate Rook Pie in his life. I have always heard so much nonsense about this Rook Pie business that I am starting to think nobody ever ate Rook Pie! Someone always knows someone, whose granny used to make it, but nobody I know has actually told me truthfully that they have eaten it; Well…I have a story for you! It was a warm old day back in May 2012, the 12th to be exact and this by chance is the traditional Rook Shooting day. That sounds a little unusual but the Victorians were fanatical about Rooks and had a day on which everyone would go out and shoot Rooks for eating which was May 12th. In fact, it was called “Brancher Day”. The word Brancher being the term for a young bird a little too big for the nest but not ready to fly and thusly they sit out on the branches of the tree until they are ready to do so, Branchers have the quality of being very good eating, unlike older birds and it is these that they cooked with. Some weeks before a neighbour of mine contacted me and asked if I could do anything with the Rooks on her land that had become a serious problem if not a hazard. A large field of crops to the right of the area where the Rooks where nesting known as a “Rookery” they were causing a lot of damage. Their preferred diet of wireworms and leather jackets, or clickbeetle larvae and daddy long legs larvae as they are better known is usually a help to the farmer but they can also be serious crop pests and this was the problem on this particular ground. As well as this, some animals were held in the same field as the Rookery and the droppings from above were coming down in such quantities there was fear of infection from ingestion. The old Rook isn’t all bad however provided he is kept in check and they are in fact quite nice to see in the countryside. It is said that a Rookery on your land is good luck, but if they leave it is a bad omen. As well as this, you must tell them if there is a death in the family or it will annoy them. Many moons ago, a young lad would have got a half penny for three young Rooks or their eggs, such was the population size and the necessity to keep it down. My neighbour of course did not want to eradicate the birds, but simply thin them a little and reduce the possibility of their now increasingly large mess harming any of the livestock below. After some pheasant work at home that morning, I screeched to a halt outside JR’s house to collect him and we made for the Rookery about 45 minutes away. As we walked towards the Rookery after parking the noise really struck me, how a flock birds could make so much noise was unbelievable. I had my 12 gauge shot gun and also my .410 which has proven to be a very effective little  gun, but today would really come into its own. We had a quick scout in the trees below and it soon became apparent that this was a serious population of birds; the mess on the grass just had to be seen. In some areas, obviously below nests and roosting spots it was literally inches deep. We could spot young birds dodging and weaving above in the branches and before long we had knocked down over a dozen. The older birds were now circling above in their hundreds and we made our way outside the trees and managed to shoot quite a few this way before they moved further back. Inside the trees again and we took a side each, my 12 gauge even with trap shells was perhaps a little overkill for the job, but JR had the .410 which was proving very useful, I purchased this small over and under a couple of years ago and after loading it with 3” magnum shells have found it to be a most useful weapon, accounting for pheasant, Widgeon and even a rabbit with it. JR took two birds with one shot and then several in succession as we circled around and around the trees playing catch up with the branchers, straining our necks by constantly looking up. Within very little time we had shot a considerable amount of birds and I set about collecting them. JR had counted every bird shot as only JR could! I couldn’t remember how many I had shot let alone the both of us, but by the time I had them gathered up I knew it was plenty. Aside from the branchers we had accounted for plenty of older birds and it could only help the situation the landowner was facing. We called on the way out and she was most pleased with what we had shot, and asked that we might have another day it at. I loaded the birds into the truck and JR asked me what I was going to do with them. I asked him had he ever eaten Rook pie and he bust out laughing. He told me that I may well be sleeping with the dogs if I attempted to make Rook Pie back at the house and he might let me sleep at his if that was the case, and he wasn’t far wrong! It took a little explaining when my better half arrived home from shopping to find the kitchen a little untidy, with a few black feathers here and there! I breasted the birds, soaked them in milk overnight and cooked them in the pan with a large onion before putting into a pie and baking in the oven. And so it was that I put and end to the mystery. With twenty four (or should that be four and twenty) Rook breasts baked in a pie with some onions and a little gravy, I can now say that I have walked the walk, I have eaten Rook Pie. So did JR and Brian the Blacksmith and we are in agreement that it was a dainty dish to set before the king! What did it taste like? Exquisite would be a good word, I like Pigeon but it was better, in fact Pigeon tastes rather poor in comparison. And as for four and twenty black birds, that actually was Rooks – It just didn’t ft the Rhyme.

Steven McGonigal