Ten Untold Treasures

A decade has now passed since he established his miniature estate and Richard Hardy celebrates by trying to bag 10 species in 10 hours

- Richard Hardy

The Editor confidently stated that “where wild bird shooting happens, biodiversity flourishes” (Leader, 13 November). Sporting conservationists the length and breadth of these fine islands know this to be true and are putting it into practice every single day of the year.

Nothing could amply demonstrate this so succinctly as a challenge set on my tiny sporting oasis — 10 years in the making on 10 acres of Wessex chalk, the target of 10 species between sunrise and sunset in November, giving us barely 10 hours.

In November 2009 I bought 10 acres of fairly dull grassland, with a few hundred meters of precious chalk stream running through the centre. My head planned to fence off the river from marauding cattle and linking the pasture to my surrounding land-holding, but my heart wanted to remove the fences, scrape out the old pond, plant trees and let the whole thing go a bit wild and woolly. Thank goodness, for once my heart won over my head.

Wind the clock forward to November 2019. It’s 6.40 am and the far corner of the pasture is now unrecognizable; hedges have escaped the annual flail and hawthorn is marching slowly outwards.

6.40 am making a start

The hedge, now 5m thick, harbors untold sporting treasures, but the thermal scope in my hand tears away the thorny layers to reveal a roe doe picking her way silently through the scene. She pauses to sniff the air before breaking cover, her destination the thick nettle patch where she will sleep her day away.