This Farmers wife keeps chickens and geese and for the last week ,the geese have been creating a noise in the early hours of the morning and they have seen a fox in the yard.
They mentioned this to Darren and he promised to get it taken care of.
You should realise that this is typical of Darren, heart of gold and all the best intentions in the world, but his mouth moves faster than his brain most of the time.
He telephoned me on Wednesday evening to ask if I had any ideas how he could keep his promise to the Farmer and I agreed to go and have a look at the layout yesterday.
The Farm is predominately fruit orchards, with just a couple of small meadows nearer the Farm.
Although there were a few fox runs under the fencing, it was impractical to set snares, as they had free range chickens and geese (that are locked up at night).
Its possible to lightly peg the bottom of the snare into the ground to allow smaller birds to walk through it, but geese would worry it and disturb it.
I also didn't fancy crawling around in the dark setting snares, after the birds had been put away.........it wasn't me that did the promising.
Sitting in the Farmyard all night hoping it would return was equally unattractive, for the same reasons and I suggested a pre sunrise visit with the lamp this morning.
Darren does a bit of clay shooting and has a shotgun and as the Farm is quite isolated and the Farmer wanted the fox out of the way, disturbance wasn't a factor.
Sunrise this morning was about 6.30 am and we met in the lane outside at 5am.
I also had my 12 gauge, but I was the lamper/caller and Darren was the "hitman".
We quietly entered the Farmyard and I lamped around, but all was quiet and there was no sign of any fox, so we moved on to check out the orchards.
We stopped and I called at three separate locations and despite getting a hare to come within range (we left him alone), we saw nothing.
It was now about 6.15 and getting a bit light, I had the horrible thought of having to come back and do this all over again.
One orchard backed on to a Forestry Commission plantation and we stood at one corner looking straight up the rows of apple trees to the Plantation.
I called for about 5 minutes and then picked up eyes at the top of the row, about 300 yards away, but there were four eyes.
They now started towards us at a fair pace side by side, but instead of it being some alien creature, it was two foxes in a race.
I had already arranged with Darren that I would try to call a fox well into shotgun range and would then stop it, thats when he should fire.
When these foxes were about 50 yards away I glanced at Darren and he seemed transfixed, his gun wasn't mounted and his mouth was wide open.
I kept calling, but nudged him violently and still he seemed in a coma.
By now the foxes were within 40 yards and looking as though they were going to run straight through us.
I stopped them at 25 yards, dropped the lamp and shot one standing and the other as it started to turn away.
Darren woke up on the second shot and was all action, I had to almost stop him shooting the dead foxes.
He looked so funny and bewildered, I couldn't stop laughing.
I have seen shooters get "lamp fixed" before, but this was the worse case ever.
We took this picture with his mobile phone and then he dragged the foxes back to the Farm (at my insistence ).
The Farmer was up and had heard the shots, he had a big grin on his face when we walked into the yard and a bigger grin when I told him how Darren had expertly shot both the foxes.
The Farmer's wife came out and gave Darren a big hug and a kiss on the cheek (the only time I regretted my magnanimous gesture).
I asked the Farmer if we could borrow a spade so Darren could bury the foxes and he thought this was a great idea.
Darren wasn't so sure, but he was in no position to discuss the matter.
Alls well that ends well and after Darren digging for 30 hard minutes, we were on our way.
I told Darren that if he needs a hand again, just give me a call....I won't hold my breath.
