Better than a gun

I’m rarely spooked, but the guys discharging firearms on the other side of the hedge took me by surprise. I was on a public footpath. They were on private land – uniformed members of the armed wing of the Tory party. I presume they were blowing the brains out of rabbits. It had been a pleasant morning up till then – a hard frost, a clear winter’s day, crispy meadows and warm in the sun, birds twittering. It was peaceful. Then bang, bang, bang. That’s country life, I suppose. I thought it was against the law to shoot so close to a footpath, even if you’re shooting away from it. But I checked, and it’s okay, as long as you don’t actually shoot anyone in the process. So, that’s all right, then.

The footpath I was on was an attractive one. It threaded its way along emerald pastures. There were ancient oaks, and a sleepy river nearby. It was idyllic, I suppose, but I didn’t feel entirely welcome. At the entrance to the first meadow there was a sign, reminding me of my place. I was on a public footpath crossing “private land”, it said. I was not permitted to picnic, to gather in groups, nor even to venture by the river-bank, it said. Did the little flask of coffee in my pocket count as a picnic? The Derbyshire cops would have said so, at least in so far as the lock-down rules go. Thank goodness this is Lancashire then, and I was walking doorstep to doorstep. But that’s another story.

River banks are monetised, and most of them are a trespass if you’ve not paid your dues. How does one own a river? Who was the first Sir Grabball to claim the river? Who was the first Sir Grabball to claim the meadow? These things are mysteries the Great British public prefer not to enquire too deeply into. They are accepting of their place, and obligingly supine before the interests of perceived class, and money.

Ignore me. I’m sore because those gunmen gave me a fright. But I used to shoot too, a long time ago. Okay, I was just a kid with an air-rifle, so not exactly the same thing. But I had a farmer’s permission, of sorts, to roam a patch of woodland near what was my home back then. I would sit for hours in that wood, waiting for things to point my sights at. But the wood also had a watchman – a noisy old bird called a Jay. He’d always see me coming and send up an alarm. Then all the other creatures knew to keep their heads down, until they saw me leaving. At least that’s the way I interpreted my poor performance as a hunter, as a superior creature in the evolutionary pecking order. Beautiful bird, a Jay. And smart. Smarter than me anyway. As for guns, they can be a dangerous obsession for a young man, and it’s best he grows out of them before they damage his brain.

I was lucky. All it took was cars and girls. And then at some point you realize you don’t need a gun to stalk creatures, nor to feel immersed in nature. Nowadays the pigeons come and sit on my garden fence, brazen as you like. I could feed myself all week off them if I’d mind to, but they know I’m not like that. They also know I’m superstitious about birds. Birds tell me things. One of them is it’s a hard life being a bird, hard enough without being shot at for fun. They take a dim view of it.

There’s this thing at the minute about making trespass a criminal offence. Have you heard that one? So if I’d chosen to ignore that sign, wandered off the path a bit and went and stared all poetically at the river, perhaps sipped brazenly on my coffee while I was at it, that would make me a criminal. How do you feel about that? Would it put you off roaming the English countryside? Is that good for us, do you think? The Ramblers Association is upset about it, and they’re a powerful lobby, but we’ve the wrong lot in at the moment for protecting public access to open spaces, so I fear there’s a good chance it’ll pass.

For the landowners it’s about money I suppose. For the shooter, I understand the appeal, having been there myself. But it was different back then – working men and guns. My parents’ generation grew up with rationing, but if you had a gun and a bit of countryside out your back door, you’d not go hungry. Nowadays, though guns are more about class, or aping it, than supplementing your diet. It’s about rubbing shoulders with the County – or what passes for it now.

I’m still not good with the names of birds – just the common ones – and I saw plenty of them along the way today. They were keeping their heads down, loitering in hedgerows and among the tangle of a tree’s branches. It wasn’t the gunmen they were scared of though. It was something else. I heard it before I saw it.

The cry of a Buzzard is an eerie thing. I’ve been stalking one for ages in other parts of my locale, and didn’t expect one here. That makes three I know of now, and all within a small radius from my doorstep. They’re vulnerable when they stake out a territory that belongs to Sir Grabball. The birds have more natural rights to it, but he has the guns and the traps and the poisoned bait on his side.

Apologies, again. I didn’t mean this to veer into Ewan Maccoll territory. But anyway, for once everything came into place. I had the camera with the right lens on it. I had the shutter set on burst mode, by accident. The sun was lighting the bird beautifully. Now, would it grace me with a flyby, close enough to tell it from a sparrow?

Squeezing off those shots was a thrill. Maybe a man with a gun would understand, even though his endgame would be a dead bird. I took a lot of pictures in that burst, so it was odds on at least one would come out right. I admit, I wandered off the path a bit in my excitement. Yes, I trespassed. So shoot me.

A camera is so much better than a gun.