Makings of an Autumn Breakfast.

I sat at the base of a tree today and looked up into the branches of another one close by. There was a rise of ground in front of me and, just on the brow of the little slope ahead of me was a red-brown pile of earth that'd been thrown out by a badger expanding its underground home. I've been told by a dog-walker that knows this field that sometimes the badgers dig up bottles and push them out onto the mounds by their front doors; I'd like to come across a badger-excavated old marble-stopped pop bottle above all things, I guess.

I sat under this tree in the late afternoon with the idea that I'd take a shot at any wood-pigeon that came to rest in the branches above. I sat there for close on an hour, looking up at the sky and imagining the pleasures of a grilled pigeon for dinner - but I had no luck. There were birds flying past but non chose to land in the tree I'd picked to sit alongside. I hadn't made any great attempts to hide myself beyond being dressed in drab green and sitting beside a big clump of nettles, mind you, so perhaps the pigeons just saw a chap with a gun sitting below a tree and thought that a roost down the field a little way might just be a better bet? Who knows.

Autumn is nearly here; it'll soon be time for me to acknowledge that if I actually do want to get a rabbit then I'm going to have to start going out at dusk again. I did see one or two today, out in the slightly weak afternoon sun, but this seems like nothing compared to the dozens I'd have seen at this time of day a month or so back.


On the way home, I picked a knee-pocket full of damsons from the abandoned orchard to make a sweet purée with which to enliven tomorrow's breakfast porridge.

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Tags: stalking, wood pigeon, damsons, food, countryside, England