A covey of partridges flushed high across the line, guns picking their birds as pheasants entered the fray. The last bird of the drive was a lone pheasant rocketing past two guns as the whistle sounded Sutton Parva Wiltshire

Challenging sport and plentiful hospitality are the order of the day on a relaxed family-run shoot where the ethos is 'less is more'

- Sam Rickitt

IF A BIRD in the hand is worth two in the bush, can the same be said about a shoot taken back in hand? In the rolling West Wiltshire Downs, Sutton Parva shoot at Haydon Farm was commercially run when, three years ago, owners Chris and Sally Prendergast made the decision to take it back in-house. The farm lies outside the village of Tytherington in the Wylye Valley amid the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, with its downland hills and chalk river valleys.

Running a working farm, the Prendergasts have a 30-year understanding of the conservation that goes hand in hand with managing the land. They transferred this ethos to their shoot, immediately reducing the number of birds released by two-thirds for a more sustainable approach, as well as reorganising coverts and the days on offer for a better mix of family, syndicate and sold days. "Our ethos is less is more," states Chris simply. Keeper Matt, who has worked at the shoot for 15 years, is in full agreement with the approach. "A lot of guns prefer these smaller days," he says.