What makes the grey partridge so special, and why is its French cousin now a far more familiar sight on British shoots?
With the partridge season underway, Jake Woolf, Avian Sandercock and Sam Turner take a look at one of Britain’s classic game birds.
Jake has already been lucky enough to shoot both red-legged and wild grey partridge this season, which leads into the differences between the two birds, why grey numbers declined so dramatically and the habitat and predator management required to restore wild populations.
They also get into the shooting itself, including walked-up versus driven partridge, why they somehow appear faster than pheasants, identifying greys and red-legs on the wing, and the particular challenge and privilege of shooting a sustainable surplus of wild English birds.
Then there are cartridges, small-bore guns, early season shooting in shirt sleeves and Jake briefly believing he had mastered the .410 before normal service quickly resumed.
Finally, they turn to the table and ask whether young partridge might actually be one of the finest game birds to eat.
In this episode:
- Grey versus red-legged partridge
- Why red-legs are known as French partridge
- The decline and conservation of the wild grey
- Habitat, chick food and predator management
- What a covey is
- Walked-up and driven partridge shooting
- Why partridge can be deceptively difficult to hit
- Identifying quarry before taking a shot
- 12-bores, 20-bores, 28-bores and .410s
- Steel cartridges and lighter early season loads
- Why the season begins on 1 September
- Why partridge deserves a place on the dinner table
Useful links:
- BASC: Shooting seasons
- Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust: Conserving the grey partridge
- GWCT: Partridge Count Scheme
Please note: Grey and red-legged partridge seasons and regulations vary across the UK. Wild greys should only be shot where monitoring shows a sustainable surplus. Always follow current legislation and the instructions given at the shoot briefing.
Part of the SideCountry Network.
This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors.
Avian Sandercock: Sam, back again behind the mic, mate. What have you been up to this week?
Sam Turner: Work, work and a little bit more work to be fair, mate. Nothing exciting. What about you?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, about the same, mate. To be honest, it feels like that time of year. But somebody hasn't. Jake, what have you been up to mate?
Jake Woolf: I've been incredibly lucky to have enjoyed a couple of days out on the first week of September. It's been a wonderful start to the season.
Avian Sandercock: And what have you been shooting?
Jake Woolf: So I've been incredibly lucky to be shooting Partridge as it's the 1st of September and the game season has now officially started for most of us.
Avian Sandercock: For you, we're still waiting over here, mate. I don't know what...
Sam Turner: By most of, he means one-third of us.
Avian Sandercock: Absolutely, yes. Well, it's bloody lucky, Jake, actually, that you've been out shooting Partridge, because that's what the episode's all about today, talking about the partridge. So first of all, Sam, what's a partridge?
Sam Turner: He's a bird.
Avian Sandercock: He is a bird.
Sam Turner: Do we start with a bird? Yeah, tasty bird, flappy bird. Faster than a pheasant bird or is it the same speed that appears to be going faster?
Avian Sandercock: Let's come back to that. Let's come back to that. Let's keep it basics. So your partridge is classic game bird of the inner pear tree variety, I believe.
Sam Turner: I think was the so we've got two, haven't we? We've got the grey and the red legged.
Avian Sandercock: Yes.
Sam Turner: Which was the one in the pear tree?
Avian Sandercock: I guess it would have been the grey.
Sam Turner: It's got to be the grey, hasn't it?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, because that's your classic English partridge, native to traditional farmland. Very much a bird of your neck of the woods, wasn't it, Jakey? Very much so. All sort of Suffolk, Norfolk, no sandy soils.
Jake Woolf: East Anglia.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, East Anglia's in Hampshire and Wiltshire, sort of out on the big plains there. It's a bird of wide open spaces.
Sam Turner: Mixed farming, open spaces, hedges, margins. that kind of thing.
Jake Woolf: Soil type as well.
Avian Sandercock: I think, we'll sort of come on to it as we dig in a bit deeper, but they are traditionally birds of that sort of big open land, traditional agriculture farming, little bit of scruffy ground for them to nest in, hedges to hide in, big open fields, because, you know, they tend to, unlike a lot of game birds, they form big family coveys and tend to occupy very, very large areas of ground and move around between them. But, changes in farming, changes in climate, changes in all sorts of things, unfortunately they're in decline a bit.
Sam Turner: And they're not so not so keen on the not so keen on the woodland edges like a pheasant maybe.
Avian Sandercock: Not at all, no. I think they're very much... I remember the few I've seen over the years. They tend to be right out in the middle of the field.
Sam Turner: Yeah.
Avian Sandercock: But then there's the other one, isn't there? The red leg or sometimes called the French partridge.
Sam Turner: Yeah, obviously not native as French.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, didn't use the tunnel to get here.
Jake Woolf: Why did they get called the French partridge? And why have we got the English when their accent?
Avian Sandercock: Well, bizarrely, I mean, the English partridge is found pretty much from here right the way to Outer Mongolia. And as we'll get to, throughout parts of Europe, they're impossibly common, but they were the only partridge that naturally occurred in England. They were the sporting bird of choice. And I mean, the red legs, they were called the French partridge basically because that's where we bought them from. I mean, the first introductions go way back to the 1700s. where they were brought in as a bit of a novelty, something slightly different in the game line. But really in the 1960s, as the English partridge declined to numbers that just really weren't viable to harvest through shooting, that's where we started importing them. But you know, the redleg partridge or the French partridge, they're abundant throughout Europe. And they're, I don't know, Sam, would you say they're a hardier bird or is it just that they're a bit more tolerant of different habitats?
Sam Turner: I don't know. I'd be interested to know, so were the redleg introduced because the grey population was declining or was the redleg introduced because they wanted more birds to shoot, do you think?
Avian Sandercock: Great question. I guess it's a bit of both. I think the original release is way back when was just for a bit of novelty and something different. Certainly I think in the 60s, the dwindling numbers of greys and the difficulty with changes in agriculture of maintaining A harvestable wild population, it was just easier and simpler to meet demand by introducing red legs. They, you know, they're easier to manage on the ground. They're a bit more tolerant of habitat and they became the predominant, you know, sort of shooting day species.
Sam Turner: So obviously it, I mean it's going to be a privilege to go and shoot either Red Legs or Grey's. Yes. Grey's probably more so. Jake, what have you been out on?
Jake Woolf: I've been incredibly lucky to be out on both.
Avian Sandercock: Oh for God's sake man. Not only have you had a wonderful start to the season, but you're rubbing our bloody noses in it.
Jake Woolf: Well, I'm trying not to. I'm trying not to because I appreciate how privileged I was and am to be out so early in the season. Because I made a joke of it earlier, but to be out so early is a real privilege and to take the 1st of September and certainly at the estate where I was, that's magical. For the listeners who haven't heard of my socials where I was, then I, on the 1st of September, I've been to Water Priory. So I was very, very lucky to shoot there and I have done now for a few seasons.
Sam Turner: And that is a, that's prestigious for the Partridge because of its habitat creation and topography and things like that, Jake, is it?
Jake Woolf: The topography is amazing there. Yorkshire is just a beautiful, beautiful county and it has the ability to show some incredible birds.
Sam Turner: And so this was where you were shooting the red leg partridge.
Jake Woolf: Absolutely. There was no English to be seen there. A couple of days later to be on a dog training day as a gun on a walked up day. That's pretty cool. It was brilliant. Normally I'm in the line with the dogs and I was very kindly invited to be a gun. It's not big bags. You stop after every bird is downed and the dogs are sent from the line, all Labradors, so the right kind of gun dog. Yeah, easy.
Avian Sandercock: You know I'm bisexual when it comes to dogs.
Sam Turner: And whereabouts were the greys? That wasn't a water, that was elsewhere.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, it's on a private estate. And I was very, very lucky to be welcomed onto that private estate by my host. But to shoot wild partridge, wild English grey partridge, the efforts have gone in from the keepering team to get them to that point. And the habitat, which is around that estate, the hard work. I don't think I can explain well enough on this audio platform how hard and how amazing that team worked to get them to that point. So yeah, very, very special and very, very lucky. So yeah.
Sam Turner: And so with the grey partridge, we are, we looking at the population increasing at the moment. Obviously we spoke about a decline in the 60s that was supplemented by by the red leg or the French partridge. There's a lot of efforts going on nationally, I think, and it's a slow project, I know, but are we seeing good numbers of grades coming back now?
Jake Woolf: I think it's quite hard to gauge, isn't it, Ava? I mean, I know that there are a lot of people out there with the GWCT. It's why I'm throwing it back to you.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, I think you know that there are some amazing rehabiting projects going on. a lot of them in the southeast, certainly up your way, Jake. But I think what people are finding is because since the 50s, it wasn't the shooting that was reducing the numbers in any way close to the change in habitat. And I think one of the biggest problems was when young grey partridge just hatched. Their main diet is insects, and if you've got, I mean, 'cause the 50s was the times of D.D.T.
Sam Turner: And mass sprayings and ploughing up, it was post-war and everything got chucked into food production, absolutely, yeah.
Avian Sandercock: And that really took the numbers way, way down. And I think also quite a lot of the bigger estates, they changed the way they farmed field sizes. we've gone through this weird period of grubbing all the hedges up and now we're all planting them back in again and now we're putting solar panels on and all of this change, for a wild bird, they can't keep up with that. They can't adjust and adapt their habits quickly enough. And I think one of the key differences in life cycle between the red and the grey, is the greys tend to spend a lot of their time in a family covey. The pairs will go off and breed and both parents will have an awful lot of input into protecting and rearing those chicks and bringing them on, which makes it not impossible, but harder to breed them in captivity and release them. And then the problem would release them. Hey, just to interrupt you there.
Jake Woolf: What is a covey?
Avian Sandercock: Oh, a covey. Like a flock that walks. How's that?
Jake Woolf: That'll do. That'll do, listeners. That's what it is. If you want to put them down on your pub quiz. And covey sizes, how big can they get up to?
Avian Sandercock: Oh, I don't really know, but I mean, I suppose back in the good old days of some of the estates up your way, hundreds? and you'd have lots of coveys on bits of ground. But I think, they need so much of that similar sort of arable open ground mixed with a bit of rough grass and beetles and bugs and all the rest of it. Whereas I think, as we said right at the top, the red legs, they're a little hardier, a little easier to please, shall we say. And you know, it's easier to breed them in captivity. They're a bit more pheasanty in that way. They're not great parents, so you can rear chicks and release them. They'll put up with slightly different habitat. They generally get kept in pens in cover crops and released into that and they're quite happy. So, you know, they are very much released and harvested. Some will breed and I think, you know, we've friends of ours have got a few coveys of wild red legs kicking around, but they are released regularly all the time. So that was the decline of the grey, but as you said, Jake, there's massive efforts.
Sam Turner: The grey wasn't in the, you know, in the same way the grouse hasn't been, because, you know, grouse shooting I've never done, but I understand enough about it that, you know, anyone will only take a harvestable surplus of grouse. and they will do that in the same way as grey partridge. So what we're actually all looking for is an increase in the population so that surplus, whatever percentage you may say it is, greater. So the red, what I'm getting at is the introduction of the red leg was so that we could have more to shoot, basically.
Avian Sandercock: I think we've been honest about it. was the same as releasing reared pheasants every year. It's expediency. You know, if you want to look after your ground, put some birds down for some sport, which funds all the nature restoration work you do as a club or a business. You need to go out and buy the birds in, put them down. It's that regularity, it's controllable, you know, the vet checked and can all be done. The other side of it are the people who have the ability, and let's face it, you're looking at many thousands of acres to make a grey partridge reintroduction viable. And I don't know about you, I haven't got several 1000 acres. I've got the front garden and the bit the dogs dig in around the back. I mean, my dad and I years ago, we tried to release some grey partridge in the area here because there used to be a few small coveys on the farm down here in Cornwall. And it was an abject failure because we don't have links to all the landowners and they're mainly cattle and sheep down here now. So they don't have big arable areas. They weren't going to change their farming practices for me and dad having, you know, two small family coveys. And the other problem is it's predator control. If you've got red legs and pheasants on a small shoot, you can contain them with some clever feeding and some habitat management. But unless you do the predator control, you snookered. And I think the greys tend to range over such vast areas of land, unless everybody is keeping on top of that. at the end of the day, they're ground nesting birds. They suffer the same fate, many ground nesting birds when the predators are unchecked.
Jake Woolf: So would that mean then Ave, that if you were in a farm cluster, then you're already then in a great opportunity to, and you had the right land to potentially get some graze in. Now, graze, the numbers are down. Would you buy them from a hatchery, a game farm? At what point when they come in as young and they come in as poults, they are released and then they become wild. But then do they have to have a season before they're known as wild grades instead of being released grades or like how?
Avian Sandercock: Have you ever tried to catch one?
Jake Woolf: What, a wild grey.
Avian Sandercock: A wild one. I think they're pretty wild the minute they come out-of-the-box, man. I don't, I'll be honest with you, mate. I really don't know. It's kind of a How long is a piece of string question? I think it's all about, I love your point about the farm cluster. If you've got enough landowners with the right sort of attitude, yes, you could probably make it happen, but it's a very, very expensive hobby to have, albeit a fantastic one.
Sam Turner: If you've got some wild greys, is it the case that you, know, if you're in an area where everyone is of the same mindset and wants to boost the population, do you have to supplement with reared grey partridge? We'll come on to it, I think.
Avian Sandercock: Because in France that's exactly what they do. So, there are a couple of approaches to trying to protect greys throughout Europe and that's certainly one of them. But, as you said, talking about boosting numbers, I'm just going to stick my neck out here and say that if everyone listening here could like, comment and subscribe and give us a five star thumbs up, ring the bell, whatever you have to do, we'd be very, very grateful and we promise that if you do, next time Sam and I will go and do something fun. They won't always be bloody Jake being helicoptered here, there and everywhere.
Jake Woolf: I'm afraid, chapter, there's no helicopter involved. I had to drive myself.
Sam Turner: Oh dear, what a shame. What a shame.
Avian Sandercock: So Jake, you've done both this season, walked up and driven. I've only ever done driven partridge on red legs a few years back. How do you actually go about tackling them? Can you just run us through what a walked up day is all about? I know you did yours sort of field trial with Gundogs, but if you were to take that and say you're going on a walked up day, early September, what does that look like? Are you just shooting greys or red legs? Talk me through a walked up.
Jake Woolf: So walked up predominantly, you're going to line yourselves out in a line. And what we do at Branches Park is we walk up a block of an area, whether or not it is a bit of maize or a bit of cover crop or a bit of grassland that has been left. Partridge really like to be out there. And then you just slowly walk up. They're incredibly flighty. Even on the 1st of September, these were this season's birds. Now, yes, there'll be some from last season in amongst them.
Avian Sandercock: So this answers your question. They're pretty much wild birds as soon as they get out-of-the-box, haven't they? know what they're about.
Jake Woolf: You don't want to spook them.
Sam Turner: I was going to say, have you got to be a lot more steady with dogs? Because you'll often, when I've been out on, especially on mixed partridge and pheasant days, partridge will come out all in one burst. Or is it you can kind of keep driving pheasants in a more steady manner? Whereas Partridge just, I guess it's the Covey thing, they just seem to go together.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, they all break and they go very low. They hug the contours of the ground. anyone who's been lucky enough to see them break early, though it's not desirable because the gamekeepers are sadly, and so are the guns, but when they break, they really hug low and they stay low. To actually Walk Partridge up takes a hell of a lot of skill from the keeper in his team or her team. It's not easy. The dogs need to remain incredibly calm. You actually don't want to stir it up and you just go walking calmly, holding your nerve and wait for that rise. You can walk them into the wind. You can, sometimes some people might put a couple of stops at the end of where you're going to, you want to get to.
Avian Sandercock: They may be brave if you're shooting them low.
Jake Woolf: You've obviously got some rules and that's where the briefing comes into. Bloody rules.
Sam Turner: And are you choosing, are you walking, are you walking up with a different dog? Are you using a HBR like you might with Grouse?
Jake Woolf: I've not done that. We've walked them up very naturally. So how we do it at Branches Park is I'll put a couple of guys on the flushing point of a drive and then we'll walk the other walking guns. up so you get the best of both worlds. So they're acting as your stop and they get the driven birds going over the top of them and any of the partridge what to want to break out early and curl back over the walking guns, they can safely have a driven going away bird and because they're walking up anything going behind that is safe, they can shoot going behind the line stops and there'll be dogs in that line that are slowly tapping moving forward, but then can also work back to pick up. And that's how it kind of works. And my experiences from it, which gives the whole team a really, really great experience.
Sam Turner: Because that's kind of combining the two.
Avian Sandercock: So Sam, you've done driven.
Sam Turner: I've done driven Partridge, yeah.
Avian Sandercock: And they, was your experience with Red Legs?
Sam Turner: That was all Reds and it was. So I find them more tricky. So I've done one day that was purely partridge, which I seem to get into it fairly well. I find it very difficult, I don't know about you guys, on a mixed day, when you've probably been shooting partridge, shooting pheasant for a couple of drives, and then they say there's going to be some partridge in this next one. And it brings it back to this, what is faster, a pheasant or a partridge? Or what looks like it's going faster.
Avian Sandercock: Quite. I think that that's sort of what catches a lot of people out, isn't it? Because I understand that, strictly speaking, they aren't as fast as a pheasant in full flight by, 10 miles an hour or so. But I guess because they're small, they're quite busy birds, aren't they? That wonderful.
Sam Turner: The wing flap is faster. It's yeah, it will just.
Avian Sandercock: Seem easy to be a bit lower. And I guess when they're mixed in with the big pheasants, your brain just makes them seem faster. So most people miss them out in front, don't they?
Jake Woolf: I actually prefer shooting a partridge than a pheasant because the pheasant looks slower in the air. And so you think you've got all the time in the world. And if I don't think about it and just pull through, then I find that.
Avian Sandercock: So you're behind the pheasant and in front of the partridge. That's just the way of it, I think, isn't it?
Jake Woolf: I close my eyes.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah. Don't do that. Don't tell everyone that. I mean, one thing I've heard, and I've never seen it, but I'd absolutely love to, and I don't know if you saw this at all, Jake, obviously, because you were walking up with the dogs. But I've heard that when Grey Partridge are driven, because they're obviously on those flatter grounds, you know, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, that sort of area, that they'll come over the hedge and starburst. So you'll have a Covey group come out and just, I've never seen that. I'd love to see that.
Jake Woolf: I have seen that two seasons go on a beaters day. I was shooting an invited to on a local estate and I saw these birds coming forward. I was like, whatever are they doing? That's not like a normal partridge. I need them to be a partridge. And they almost just stopped and dropped. And I was like, goodness me. And then they turned back and they dropped back into the cover again. And I was like, what the? Anyway, luckily lads. We were allowed to shoot English that day because I got a left and a right. It's my first ever left and a right and it was on English. And there is a picture that I sent to you. I will happily share it of me looking very, very like, what have I done? Walked up to the gamekeeper so worried. And he was like, no, they're there. He said, and don't tell anyone else because they taste so good. They're mine. So I got away for that one. However, their flight is complete and they make a lovely, lovely noise as they go through. Like you said, avian, they just starburst away from you. But they come in, they almost fly like grouse. The way they top their...
Avian Sandercock: They're quite manoeuvrable birds, aren't they? Because they're, I mean, what size are they? They're sort of, I don't know, pigeon size, dove size. They're about half the size of a...
Jake Woolf: I would say so. I would say so.
Avian Sandercock: And they, as Sam said, they, when they're disturbed, they get up and on their toes or on their wings as quick as they can. But the little bit of partridge shooting I've been lucky enough to do, they come at you from all angles and, whereas pheasant will tend to fly straight for cover, these little ******* can come out of the edges and round the sides and swim round on you. I think they're great fun. But big question, come on then lads, what would you say was harder to shoot? A 40 yard pheasant or a 25 yard partridge? And why?
Sam Turner: I could miss them both all day long.
Avian Sandercock: Oh, me too, Sans.
Sam Turner: Yeah.
Jake Woolf: Okay, a 40 yard pheasant.
Sam Turner: I reckon a partridge at 25 would be more difficult than a 40 yard pheasant for me because I would give a partridge at 25 too much.
Jake Woolf: Yes, I'm with you on that after doing that this, you know, last week, that's exactly what. And I can tell you when the The Partridge are up there at 4040 plus. All right. But can I can I just say that I was being very, very lucky to have Partridge driven over me in grouse butts. So it and the reason so and I wasn't in Scotland.
Avian Sandercock: You can go off people, can't you, Sam?
Jake Woolf: You can. I'm trying, chaps. I'm trying incredibly hard. No, it was another dog training day. And we were gunned. It was a lovely, lovely day. And the place that we were at had grouse butts. They do simulated clay pigeon shooting. And they said, we're going to put you all in a grouse ****. We're going to walk this bit of sugar beet up. And we're going to put them over you. Don't shoot behind because we're doing a picking up scenario. Dogs were behind us covering 2 butts. watching for anything that fell, a walking team took up this bit of sugar beet and the noise of the feet brushing through the sugar beet and as it got closer and closer then out of nowhere this cloud of partridge just lifted and came over 5 grouse.
Avian Sandercock: Wonderful.
Jake Woolf: It was a moment that I will never, ever forget. Super. Absolutely super. So that's one of my stories.
Sam Turner: For what appears to be the professional and now well-seasoned partridge shot, Jake, are you changing up what you use for partridge compared to pheasant?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, kit.
Jake Woolf: You mean cartridge wise?
Sam Turner: Cartridge wise, gum wise.
Jake Woolf: So I think you should start with the cartridge. A gentleman's load, a 28 gram 6 is what's often referred to for early partridge, isn't it? And I have moved away from lead ammunition for the last three seasons. So I actually shoot a standard steel 32 gram 4 in steel. But what I did for this time, because they were a bit punchy, they're certainly on early partridge, is I moved to a 30 gram 4. These were really, really good loads to use. They took them well. You could shoot them at some distance. I really like them. And I think it gave me a lot of confidence to take a more of a challenging bird.
Sam Turner: And is that that's a standard steel load, not a HP load. So you haven't got to be changing up guns and all of that.
Jake Woolf: No. And that is a separate episode. But what you're saying there was changing.
Sam Turner: It is, and obviously I'll say, check with your local gunsmith before you do put any different shot through your gun, la da. But the standard steel load is able to go through a lot more guns than a high performance steel load is what I'm saying.
Jake Woolf: Absolutely is. Absolutely is. And I don't want to, yeah, we shouldn't get carried away into the, I think for me in the lead debate there, Sam, I think for me what's important is that a nice lighter load just gives you that bit of extra confidence and you're not seeing anything, getting dispatched.
Avian Sandercock: I think your point is totally well made there, Jake, is that they're a smaller bird. I think, as we said, generally there'll be a bit closer in terms of range. But to my way of thinking, that sort of moves you onto the kind of kit you're gonna be using. And I think one of the problems, we talked briefly about 40-yard pheasant. Well, you can pretty much take a line on a 40-yard pheasant, they'll fly true and you've got a little bit of time to put your swing in and take your shot. I think with partridge, they tend to be a bit closer to you, a bit frenetic. They'll pop over a hedge or burst out of a bit of cover and you've gotta be quick. And to my way of thinking, You're kind of looking at, is a big, heavy, 32 inch, over and under 12 bore shotgun the right tool for the job? Would you not be better off if you were on a predominantly or solely partridge day to maybe look at a smaller 20 bore or 28 bore or dare I even say a cyber side? Just so you've got that little bit more manoeuvrability. You're not going for the big GT car. You want a little nimble Italian sports car to be able to make the speed up.
Sam Turner: I mean, you were doing really well there, Aventon. You put the barrels the wrong way around.
Avian Sandercock: You make a great point there.
Jake Woolf: And it also gives you a bit of fun. You don't need your thirty-two inch barrel with, you know, make it, you know, kind of example chokes and all that type of stuff. However, I've got that gun because that's the only gun I've got available to me. I think we are in the sort of ideal world. But if you can go out and have a nice walked up and driven partridge day in early September in a lighter load with a smaller bore gun, a 20 bore or even a 410, speak to our American friends. They really, really enjoy going out with small bore guns. It's becoming really popular here. Last year, Iford Downs, a friend of ours, Jamie Horner, does a wonderful partridge shoot down there.
Avian Sandercock: He certainly does.
Jake Woolf: One of the guns said, Jake, you've been taking photos of this day. Do you want to have a go? And I was like, that would be amazing. Thank you very much. I'm shooting a 410. Can you cope with that? First one that came through, now we were all stood there, we know the drive, came through, wallop. I was like, my goodness me, these 410s are brilliant. Normal service resumed, next 3 cartridges, nada.
Avian Sandercock: Bliss, bliss, bliss.
Jake Woolf: I took the camera back off. We just carried on.
Avian Sandercock: For people who don't know with the gauges, we're not going to go into it now. We'll do a different separate episode all about that. But suffice to say that a 410 doesn't have many shot in it. It's quite a small load and a small calibre and you have to be pretty good to hit anything with a 410.
Jake Woolf: And you have to have a lot of confidence if you turn up on a day with a 410 and you're the only one on a driven day with a 410 everyone's turned up in their 12s but more and more people are saying to their guests or you can buy small ball days and they're a lot of fun.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, it's becoming popular. Very popular. Again, we're looking early season, you said starts first of September. I mean, one of the other benefits there is that you're not going to be wearing your heavy tweed and your galoshes and your heavy boots and scarves and gloves. I mean, it's quite a wonderful opportunity to be out there. You could almost shoot in shirt sleeves, couldn't you? It's.
Jake Woolf: I have been. For the last two days, I was wearing collar tie, shirt and a shooting vest. it was too hot to wear anything else.
Avian Sandercock: You're not allowed to shoot in your mankini, Sam, I'm afraid.
Sam Turner: I was going to wear my string vest.
Avian Sandercock: Oh God.
Jake Woolf: Oh, now that would be a look. I would like to see that actually, Sam. I think you should do that for one of our days.
Avian Sandercock: I bet there's more holes than string, isn't it, you horrible man. That brings us to the point, why do we start in September? Why, you know, why start a month earlier than we do with the pheasant?
Jake Woolf: It brings it to the habitat and it brings it to the... how the Partridge likes its environment.
Avian Sandercock: Of course.
Jake Woolf: It enjoys those stubbly fields, those grassland areas, which are still yet to be kind of turned.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, because it'll be starting to plough October, won't they?
Jake Woolf: Yeah, absolutely. And it's for them, they're ready, they produce a lot quicker as well, and they're ready to go.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, I heard that. They sort of mature a bit quicker pretty much as soon as they've had brought their young on, they're mature and ready to go. And I think, am I right in saying that sort of up until the autumn, the larger coveys tend to stay together, whereas as they go into the winter, they'll often break into smaller groups and just be harder to bring on and find?
Jake Woolf: Yeah, and even on my farm, it's a thoroughbred stud farm. And today I shared with you a video, I counted 20 French red leg partridges in a Covey. Now, I know that they each year they can go down to two or three in a small Covey, but this year is the best year they've had.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah.
Jake Woolf: And they're in a Covey of 20 and they're going to stick together. There is no shooting around us. Yes, we have the nearest.
Avian Sandercock: Horses don't like it, I guess, do they?
Jake Woolf: We can't shoot on you know in our area and with the value of the horses and there is very very little shooting here. The nearest shoot is about 8 miles away. Now, yes, they can come in on that. But equally, I know that I see them and it's just that excitement of seeing that covey. And you're quite right what you just said, Airave. Yes. They stick together of big groups and then they break away. I'd love to know where they go.
Avian Sandercock: I think everybody who ever puts any birds down ever. would also love to know where they go.
Sam Turner: I think that seeing as a couple of episodes ago, Jake, we were talking about you buying a nice semi-auto and then telling Mrs. Wolf shortly afterwards that you'd bought it, buy yourself a nice little hush power 410. You could shoot that around the horses.
Jake Woolf: I still can't. But Toby has got his 28 ball. He's got a junior stock.
Avian Sandercock: You could stick a shoe on it or something. I tell you what, if you duct tape a croc to the end of the stock, it'd be perfect and you'd have that bit of recoil cushion.
Sam Turner: And it means he's not wearing it fishing.
Avian Sandercock: Bloody right.
Sam Turner: You didn't say anything about crocs. No, I didn't think I had to.
Avian Sandercock: So guys, what would you rather shoot then? If you had the choice, would you rather shoot a red leg day with a bigger bag or have a go on a smaller bag day of just English grey partridge, wild grey partridge.
Sam Turner: I've shot a red leg day and I haven't, I don't think I've ever seen a grey fly. So I would like to have the opportunity to shoot a small, even a brace of greys would be awesome to have a go at.
Avian Sandercock: You've done both, Jake. It's unfair to ask you which you prefer, but Maybe sort of give us a very brief, how does it feel?
Sam Turner: If you were invited, if you're invited next year to a red leg day and a grey day on the same day, oh, oh, that's tough.
Avian Sandercock: Conflict, where are you going?
Jake Woolf: A great question.
Avian Sandercock: Red, French or English, and you could only go to one, which would it be? And the elevensies are identical.
Jake Woolf: It would be the English on a walked up English day. It really would, because they're magical creatures. the hard work that goes into them. The fauna, the flora, everything in the estate, it has to be perfect for them. And it's a privilege to shoot them. It's A privilege to go out game shooting whenever we go. But the red legs will be there tomorrow.
Avian Sandercock: That's a good point.
Jake Woolf: The wild English may not be.
Avian Sandercock: They may have gone.
Jake Woolf: And so that's my answer.
Avian Sandercock: I think we've touched on it a few times this evening that, there's obviously a clear link and unfortunately I think it's a misunderstood or ignored link by people outside of the shooting world that, you know, conservation and shooting just go hand in hand. You know, you can't have one without the other as long as you're within, you know, sensible guidelines and, you know, you use common sense and the whole thing about what we're trying to do in this country to bolster the numbers of the English partridge. But I just thought, whilst I was doing a bit of research for this episode, the one piece I came across, and I think it kind of really sums this up brilliantly, is I was unaware until we started looking at this just how widespread grey partridge are throughout Europe. And whilst I know that there's, you know, a lot of hunting is done throughout Europe, I really wasn't aware of exactly how it works over there. But this one really struck me. If you look at the different strategies in, so we've got Britain, France, and then if we pull together Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, those countries have taken very, very different approaches to protecting the numbers of wild grey partridge. So as we've talked about, in the UK and in Britain here, you know, we are looking at a habitat driven reintroduction and trying to get a growth in the wild population. And it's broadly showing some success. In Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, they've gone from a mix of either massively restricting the amount of birds that can be taken in a season under license, right the way down to in the Netherlands where they've basically banned shooting partridge altogether. And then the French being the French have taken a completely different view of it. and they have perfected rearing grey partridge in the same way that you would chickens or pheasants or turkeys or what have you, and just releasing them into suitable habitat in the wild. And I think if you have a look at the success, basically the French now are confidently taking a surplus of grey partridge every year in the order of a million and a half birds, and they're releasing a couple of million a year into the wild.
Sam Turner: I was going to say, what's their ratio of what they release as to what they then take?
Avian Sandercock: They're French. I don't know if they have a hard ratio. I think, you know, they release a couple of million and they shoot what they can find. But, you know, that shows that the numbers are robust and there is a very healthy population there. In the UK, slightly different. I don't have the numbers to hand, but, you know, it's very much an estate by estate If there's a surplus, the keepers will make a decision. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we will take some grey partridge today. If they feel they've taken the number they wanted to, we don't take any tomorrow. And we are slowly starting to see access to grey partridge shooting increasing, the numbers of wild populations increasing. Whereas if you look at the, you know, the other, the third model, you know, in Germany, I think the figures were their bag of grey partridge over the last couple of years has been 3,000. In the Netherlands, they obviously, it's banned, they shoot none at all. But in the Netherlands, they reckon now they've only got 5,000 breeding pairs.
Sam Turner: Surely that's, you know, if you look at the money that goes into the conservation over here, is down to, you know, bringing up a shootable surplus. which in turn pays for the conservation that is needed to help the population grow. So if you turn around like they have and said, right, nobody's allowed to shoot them.
Avian Sandercock: Then there's no money, there's no interest, there's no manpower, the farmers don't want to do it. And I think, you know, the debates we're facing in the UK, this is the bit that keeps being overlooked is because they never ask us lot and never listen to us that, you know, if you ban it, everything's rosy. Well, it isn't. And I think our model is showing. really healthy benefits there and whether the different debate whether releasing game birds is wonderful or not or somewhere in between it's a strategy that is protecting the wild greys and the French have gone for the route of we have the habitat, we have the countryside, we have the will and the knowledge and we will release 2 million birds a year.
Jake Woolf: Question that I have is how do you tell a grey from a ray leg?
Avian Sandercock: Now is that through binoculars when you're sat quietly or when they're coming at you at 40 miles an hour 2 inches above a hedge?
Sam Turner: That's the difficult bit, because I've struggled with the silhouette of a white pheasant before.
Avian Sandercock: Oh, there, yeah, but they look like shadows when they're up there, and they come down like little angels, then they. Yeah, they do. I don't know, I mean.
Jake Woolf: A grey feather, so a grey partridge, what's it look like? Yeah, I know it's got a grey body, but you know, is there any other defining features that you know can help the gun not to?
Sam Turner: I mean, if you're really close to it, it's got kind of an orangey browny face.
Avian Sandercock: And that tends to run down the chest a little bit. I do hear that, the males will have a slightly darker patch further down, but I don't think I could spot that at speed with one eye open. I mean, the red legs, they are, they're slightly bigger. They've got that wonderful black and white barring on the wings. They do have bright red dangly legs.
Sam Turner: I was going to say they have red legs, which is a very regular leg.
Avian Sandercock: I think also they make a very different sound, don't they?
Jake Woolf: Their wings and the way they come through the line, they're like, that's right. But it's the English which, and that's my best impression.
Avian Sandercock: Are you entering the competition with that?
Sam Turner: I'm really disappointed that people can't see that Jake was actually flapping at the same time. He was, he was.
Avian Sandercock: I wish we had video for that bit.
Jake Woolf: But what I would say is that when you're invited to a shoot and you're told no English, don't be alarmed if you're on a first day and that's board up at the morning briefing, because what the keepers or certainly the people that are on stop will normally do is blow a whistle. So if you hear through your ear defenders a whistle being blown, it's not necessarily the end of the drive. It's to Let you know that it's the English covey of English are coming through.
Sam Turner: Yeah, that covey coming out though is going to look different. Grey partridge to.
Avian Sandercock: Right, okay.
Jake Woolf: It should do, but I've been on a day where English have been shot when they shouldn't have been. And people will be listening to this saying, I shot them. I didn't. I got blamed for it. And it was, I got a big fine for that and I've never forgotten it.
Avian Sandercock: I mean, I think that's again something that, if you are going to get into this sport and you are going to get out in the field, being able to have a fairly confident knowledge of what you're pointing your gun at is essential. But I think as we've kind of touched on here, there's a little, there might be a little bit of a grey, pardon the pun, grey area, but if you concentrate, you should to be able to pick them. And I guess the main thing is not many of us are going to be fortunate enough to shoot on a shoot that has greys and red legs at the same time.
Sam Turner: I'd say only a third of us are fortunate enough to do that.
Avian Sandercock: About a third, yes, a solid third in fact.
Sam Turner: A solid third.
Jake Woolf: Right, okay, I'm not going to say anything more because I'm the **** of this joke. Gentlemen, I know that the partridge taste.
Avian Sandercock: I totally agree with you. They're lovely.
Jake Woolf: Why are they such good eating birds?
Sam Turner: Very little fat.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah. And I guess because they're that bit smaller, they don't tend, because they don't take as much cooking because they're smaller. They probably don't, they're approached differently. They don't dry out quite the way some pheasants may. And I think the problem with pheasant drying out is you tend to cook them with your, I'm cooking a chicken hat on and you cook them too long. Whereas I think with partridge, people are a bit more prepared to almost treat them like scallops and just cook it until it's done and that's enough.
Jake Woolf: Now, if they're a slightly younger bird because they've been released and we're shooting them slightly earlier and as we've discussed, are they less gamey chaps to eat?
Avian Sandercock: I think so.
Jake Woolf: Sam, what do you think?
Sam Turner: I'd say so.
Jake Woolf: Yeah.
Avian Sandercock: I mean, gamey is a funny one, isn't it? Because I think, you know, for my generation, pheasants were, you know, from if you saw your grandfather to the brace of pheasants, they were always hung in the back stoop until they were almost green and falling off the string. But I don't think they, so to me that's gamey is kind of off. Gamey with pheasants, yeah, they can have that sort of like slightly high, rich flavour to them. But I think a young partridge, as you said, Jake, it's one of the best. eating game birds out there.
Jake Woolf: I actually think that is, again, another opportunity for another episode. It's actually asking, is the partridge the best British game bird to eat? And perhaps we could look deeper into that in the future. That would be a bit of fun, wouldn't it?
Avian Sandercock: That's a good idea. Maybe we could get somebody who does cooking for a living to give us a few pointers. What do you reckon?
Sam Turner: That's not a bad idea. It's a really, really simple one, especially when you've got young kids and you just want to get them eating something. Get one of those old El Paso fajita kits.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah.
Sam Turner: And just do partridge instead of chicken.
Jake Woolf: They'll never know. They'll never know. Brilliant and they ask you for it all the time.
Sam Turner: Lower in fat, lower in cholesterol, cholesterol, whatever you call it, higher in protein, smashing.
Avian Sandercock: Fantastic. Well, listen guys, I think we've given A bit of an introduction to Partridge. Hopefully we've given people a bit of information they didn't have before and got them interested in it.
Jake Woolf: Samuel, before we go, do you just want to trail the next episode?
Sam Turner: Well, I think we might be talking about something to do with deer.
Avian Sandercock: Dear, dear, deary, deary.
Sam Turner: Oh dear.
Jake Woolf: A1 idea or no idea?
Sam Turner: I'm sorry, I haven't a clue.
Avian Sandercock: Who shall we pick? Jake, take us out, mate.
Jake Woolf: Right. that's us done. And if you're enjoying Fish and Game, chuck us a five star rating. It really, really helps. Give us a follow, share it with your mates who's all been banging on about fishing and shooting. If you've got a story to tell, a rant to have, or just fancy a natter, e-mail us at hello at sidecountry.co.uk. I promise you, we do read the emails.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah.
Jake Woolf: Right. Tight lines, hot barrels, catch you next time.
Avian Sandercock: Sam, back again behind the mic, mate. What have you been up to this week?
Sam Turner: Work, work and a little bit more work to be fair, mate. Nothing exciting. What about you?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, about the same, mate. To be honest, it feels like that time of year. But somebody hasn't. Jake, what have you been up to mate?
Jake Woolf: I've been incredibly lucky to have enjoyed a couple of days out on the first week of September. It's been a wonderful start to the season.
Avian Sandercock: And what have you been shooting?
Jake Woolf: So I've been incredibly lucky to be shooting Partridge as it's the 1st of September and the game season has now officially started for most of us.
Avian Sandercock: For you, we're still waiting over here, mate. I don't know what...
Sam Turner: By most of, he means one-third of us.
Avian Sandercock: Absolutely, yes. Well, it's bloody lucky, Jake, actually, that you've been out shooting Partridge, because that's what the episode's all about today, talking about the partridge. So first of all, Sam, what's a partridge?
Sam Turner: He's a bird.
Avian Sandercock: He is a bird.
Sam Turner: Do we start with a bird? Yeah, tasty bird, flappy bird. Faster than a pheasant bird or is it the same speed that appears to be going faster?
Avian Sandercock: Let's come back to that. Let's come back to that. Let's keep it basics. So your partridge is classic game bird of the inner pear tree variety, I believe.
Sam Turner: I think was the so we've got two, haven't we? We've got the grey and the red legged.
Avian Sandercock: Yes.
Sam Turner: Which was the one in the pear tree?
Avian Sandercock: I guess it would have been the grey.
Sam Turner: It's got to be the grey, hasn't it?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, because that's your classic English partridge, native to traditional farmland. Very much a bird of your neck of the woods, wasn't it, Jakey? Very much so. All sort of Suffolk, Norfolk, no sandy soils.
Jake Woolf: East Anglia.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, East Anglia's in Hampshire and Wiltshire, sort of out on the big plains there. It's a bird of wide open spaces.
Sam Turner: Mixed farming, open spaces, hedges, margins. that kind of thing.
Jake Woolf: Soil type as well.
Avian Sandercock: I think, we'll sort of come on to it as we dig in a bit deeper, but they are traditionally birds of that sort of big open land, traditional agriculture farming, little bit of scruffy ground for them to nest in, hedges to hide in, big open fields, because, you know, they tend to, unlike a lot of game birds, they form big family coveys and tend to occupy very, very large areas of ground and move around between them. But, changes in farming, changes in climate, changes in all sorts of things, unfortunately they're in decline a bit.
Sam Turner: And they're not so not so keen on the not so keen on the woodland edges like a pheasant maybe.
Avian Sandercock: Not at all, no. I think they're very much... I remember the few I've seen over the years. They tend to be right out in the middle of the field.
Sam Turner: Yeah.
Avian Sandercock: But then there's the other one, isn't there? The red leg or sometimes called the French partridge.
Sam Turner: Yeah, obviously not native as French.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, didn't use the tunnel to get here.
Jake Woolf: Why did they get called the French partridge? And why have we got the English when their accent?
Avian Sandercock: Well, bizarrely, I mean, the English partridge is found pretty much from here right the way to Outer Mongolia. And as we'll get to, throughout parts of Europe, they're impossibly common, but they were the only partridge that naturally occurred in England. They were the sporting bird of choice. And I mean, the red legs, they were called the French partridge basically because that's where we bought them from. I mean, the first introductions go way back to the 1700s. where they were brought in as a bit of a novelty, something slightly different in the game line. But really in the 1960s, as the English partridge declined to numbers that just really weren't viable to harvest through shooting, that's where we started importing them. But you know, the redleg partridge or the French partridge, they're abundant throughout Europe. And they're, I don't know, Sam, would you say they're a hardier bird or is it just that they're a bit more tolerant of different habitats?
Sam Turner: I don't know. I'd be interested to know, so were the redleg introduced because the grey population was declining or was the redleg introduced because they wanted more birds to shoot, do you think?
Avian Sandercock: Great question. I guess it's a bit of both. I think the original release is way back when was just for a bit of novelty and something different. Certainly I think in the 60s, the dwindling numbers of greys and the difficulty with changes in agriculture of maintaining A harvestable wild population, it was just easier and simpler to meet demand by introducing red legs. They, you know, they're easier to manage on the ground. They're a bit more tolerant of habitat and they became the predominant, you know, sort of shooting day species.
Sam Turner: So obviously it, I mean it's going to be a privilege to go and shoot either Red Legs or Grey's. Yes. Grey's probably more so. Jake, what have you been out on?
Jake Woolf: I've been incredibly lucky to be out on both.
Avian Sandercock: Oh for God's sake man. Not only have you had a wonderful start to the season, but you're rubbing our bloody noses in it.
Jake Woolf: Well, I'm trying not to. I'm trying not to because I appreciate how privileged I was and am to be out so early in the season. Because I made a joke of it earlier, but to be out so early is a real privilege and to take the 1st of September and certainly at the estate where I was, that's magical. For the listeners who haven't heard of my socials where I was, then I, on the 1st of September, I've been to Water Priory. So I was very, very lucky to shoot there and I have done now for a few seasons.
Sam Turner: And that is a, that's prestigious for the Partridge because of its habitat creation and topography and things like that, Jake, is it?
Jake Woolf: The topography is amazing there. Yorkshire is just a beautiful, beautiful county and it has the ability to show some incredible birds.
Sam Turner: And so this was where you were shooting the red leg partridge.
Jake Woolf: Absolutely. There was no English to be seen there. A couple of days later to be on a dog training day as a gun on a walked up day. That's pretty cool. It was brilliant. Normally I'm in the line with the dogs and I was very kindly invited to be a gun. It's not big bags. You stop after every bird is downed and the dogs are sent from the line, all Labradors, so the right kind of gun dog. Yeah, easy.
Avian Sandercock: You know I'm bisexual when it comes to dogs.
Sam Turner: And whereabouts were the greys? That wasn't a water, that was elsewhere.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, it's on a private estate. And I was very, very lucky to be welcomed onto that private estate by my host. But to shoot wild partridge, wild English grey partridge, the efforts have gone in from the keepering team to get them to that point. And the habitat, which is around that estate, the hard work. I don't think I can explain well enough on this audio platform how hard and how amazing that team worked to get them to that point. So yeah, very, very special and very, very lucky. So yeah.
Sam Turner: And so with the grey partridge, we are, we looking at the population increasing at the moment. Obviously we spoke about a decline in the 60s that was supplemented by by the red leg or the French partridge. There's a lot of efforts going on nationally, I think, and it's a slow project, I know, but are we seeing good numbers of grades coming back now?
Jake Woolf: I think it's quite hard to gauge, isn't it, Ava? I mean, I know that there are a lot of people out there with the GWCT. It's why I'm throwing it back to you.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, I think you know that there are some amazing rehabiting projects going on. a lot of them in the southeast, certainly up your way, Jake. But I think what people are finding is because since the 50s, it wasn't the shooting that was reducing the numbers in any way close to the change in habitat. And I think one of the biggest problems was when young grey partridge just hatched. Their main diet is insects, and if you've got, I mean, 'cause the 50s was the times of D.D.T.
Sam Turner: And mass sprayings and ploughing up, it was post-war and everything got chucked into food production, absolutely, yeah.
Avian Sandercock: And that really took the numbers way, way down. And I think also quite a lot of the bigger estates, they changed the way they farmed field sizes. we've gone through this weird period of grubbing all the hedges up and now we're all planting them back in again and now we're putting solar panels on and all of this change, for a wild bird, they can't keep up with that. They can't adjust and adapt their habits quickly enough. And I think one of the key differences in life cycle between the red and the grey, is the greys tend to spend a lot of their time in a family covey. The pairs will go off and breed and both parents will have an awful lot of input into protecting and rearing those chicks and bringing them on, which makes it not impossible, but harder to breed them in captivity and release them. And then the problem would release them. Hey, just to interrupt you there.
Jake Woolf: What is a covey?
Avian Sandercock: Oh, a covey. Like a flock that walks. How's that?
Jake Woolf: That'll do. That'll do, listeners. That's what it is. If you want to put them down on your pub quiz. And covey sizes, how big can they get up to?
Avian Sandercock: Oh, I don't really know, but I mean, I suppose back in the good old days of some of the estates up your way, hundreds? and you'd have lots of coveys on bits of ground. But I think, they need so much of that similar sort of arable open ground mixed with a bit of rough grass and beetles and bugs and all the rest of it. Whereas I think, as we said right at the top, the red legs, they're a little hardier, a little easier to please, shall we say. And you know, it's easier to breed them in captivity. They're a bit more pheasanty in that way. They're not great parents, so you can rear chicks and release them. They'll put up with slightly different habitat. They generally get kept in pens in cover crops and released into that and they're quite happy. So, you know, they are very much released and harvested. Some will breed and I think, you know, we've friends of ours have got a few coveys of wild red legs kicking around, but they are released regularly all the time. So that was the decline of the grey, but as you said, Jake, there's massive efforts.
Sam Turner: The grey wasn't in the, you know, in the same way the grouse hasn't been, because, you know, grouse shooting I've never done, but I understand enough about it that, you know, anyone will only take a harvestable surplus of grouse. and they will do that in the same way as grey partridge. So what we're actually all looking for is an increase in the population so that surplus, whatever percentage you may say it is, greater. So the red, what I'm getting at is the introduction of the red leg was so that we could have more to shoot, basically.
Avian Sandercock: I think we've been honest about it. was the same as releasing reared pheasants every year. It's expediency. You know, if you want to look after your ground, put some birds down for some sport, which funds all the nature restoration work you do as a club or a business. You need to go out and buy the birds in, put them down. It's that regularity, it's controllable, you know, the vet checked and can all be done. The other side of it are the people who have the ability, and let's face it, you're looking at many thousands of acres to make a grey partridge reintroduction viable. And I don't know about you, I haven't got several 1000 acres. I've got the front garden and the bit the dogs dig in around the back. I mean, my dad and I years ago, we tried to release some grey partridge in the area here because there used to be a few small coveys on the farm down here in Cornwall. And it was an abject failure because we don't have links to all the landowners and they're mainly cattle and sheep down here now. So they don't have big arable areas. They weren't going to change their farming practices for me and dad having, you know, two small family coveys. And the other problem is it's predator control. If you've got red legs and pheasants on a small shoot, you can contain them with some clever feeding and some habitat management. But unless you do the predator control, you snookered. And I think the greys tend to range over such vast areas of land, unless everybody is keeping on top of that. at the end of the day, they're ground nesting birds. They suffer the same fate, many ground nesting birds when the predators are unchecked.
Jake Woolf: So would that mean then Ave, that if you were in a farm cluster, then you're already then in a great opportunity to, and you had the right land to potentially get some graze in. Now, graze, the numbers are down. Would you buy them from a hatchery, a game farm? At what point when they come in as young and they come in as poults, they are released and then they become wild. But then do they have to have a season before they're known as wild grades instead of being released grades or like how?
Avian Sandercock: Have you ever tried to catch one?
Jake Woolf: What, a wild grey.
Avian Sandercock: A wild one. I think they're pretty wild the minute they come out-of-the-box, man. I don't, I'll be honest with you, mate. I really don't know. It's kind of a How long is a piece of string question? I think it's all about, I love your point about the farm cluster. If you've got enough landowners with the right sort of attitude, yes, you could probably make it happen, but it's a very, very expensive hobby to have, albeit a fantastic one.
Sam Turner: If you've got some wild greys, is it the case that you, know, if you're in an area where everyone is of the same mindset and wants to boost the population, do you have to supplement with reared grey partridge? We'll come on to it, I think.
Avian Sandercock: Because in France that's exactly what they do. So, there are a couple of approaches to trying to protect greys throughout Europe and that's certainly one of them. But, as you said, talking about boosting numbers, I'm just going to stick my neck out here and say that if everyone listening here could like, comment and subscribe and give us a five star thumbs up, ring the bell, whatever you have to do, we'd be very, very grateful and we promise that if you do, next time Sam and I will go and do something fun. They won't always be bloody Jake being helicoptered here, there and everywhere.
Jake Woolf: I'm afraid, chapter, there's no helicopter involved. I had to drive myself.
Sam Turner: Oh dear, what a shame. What a shame.
Avian Sandercock: So Jake, you've done both this season, walked up and driven. I've only ever done driven partridge on red legs a few years back. How do you actually go about tackling them? Can you just run us through what a walked up day is all about? I know you did yours sort of field trial with Gundogs, but if you were to take that and say you're going on a walked up day, early September, what does that look like? Are you just shooting greys or red legs? Talk me through a walked up.
Jake Woolf: So walked up predominantly, you're going to line yourselves out in a line. And what we do at Branches Park is we walk up a block of an area, whether or not it is a bit of maize or a bit of cover crop or a bit of grassland that has been left. Partridge really like to be out there. And then you just slowly walk up. They're incredibly flighty. Even on the 1st of September, these were this season's birds. Now, yes, there'll be some from last season in amongst them.
Avian Sandercock: So this answers your question. They're pretty much wild birds as soon as they get out-of-the-box, haven't they? know what they're about.
Jake Woolf: You don't want to spook them.
Sam Turner: I was going to say, have you got to be a lot more steady with dogs? Because you'll often, when I've been out on, especially on mixed partridge and pheasant days, partridge will come out all in one burst. Or is it you can kind of keep driving pheasants in a more steady manner? Whereas Partridge just, I guess it's the Covey thing, they just seem to go together.
Jake Woolf: Yeah, they all break and they go very low. They hug the contours of the ground. anyone who's been lucky enough to see them break early, though it's not desirable because the gamekeepers are sadly, and so are the guns, but when they break, they really hug low and they stay low. To actually Walk Partridge up takes a hell of a lot of skill from the keeper in his team or her team. It's not easy. The dogs need to remain incredibly calm. You actually don't want to stir it up and you just go walking calmly, holding your nerve and wait for that rise. You can walk them into the wind. You can, sometimes some people might put a couple of stops at the end of where you're going to, you want to get to.
Avian Sandercock: They may be brave if you're shooting them low.
Jake Woolf: You've obviously got some rules and that's where the briefing comes into. Bloody rules.
Sam Turner: And are you choosing, are you walking, are you walking up with a different dog? Are you using a HBR like you might with Grouse?
Jake Woolf: I've not done that. We've walked them up very naturally. So how we do it at Branches Park is I'll put a couple of guys on the flushing point of a drive and then we'll walk the other walking guns. up so you get the best of both worlds. So they're acting as your stop and they get the driven birds going over the top of them and any of the partridge what to want to break out early and curl back over the walking guns, they can safely have a driven going away bird and because they're walking up anything going behind that is safe, they can shoot going behind the line stops and there'll be dogs in that line that are slowly tapping moving forward, but then can also work back to pick up. And that's how it kind of works. And my experiences from it, which gives the whole team a really, really great experience.
Sam Turner: Because that's kind of combining the two.
Avian Sandercock: So Sam, you've done driven.
Sam Turner: I've done driven Partridge, yeah.
Avian Sandercock: And they, was your experience with Red Legs?
Sam Turner: That was all Reds and it was. So I find them more tricky. So I've done one day that was purely partridge, which I seem to get into it fairly well. I find it very difficult, I don't know about you guys, on a mixed day, when you've probably been shooting partridge, shooting pheasant for a couple of drives, and then they say there's going to be some partridge in this next one. And it brings it back to this, what is faster, a pheasant or a partridge? Or what looks like it's going faster.
Avian Sandercock: Quite. I think that that's sort of what catches a lot of people out, isn't it? Because I understand that, strictly speaking, they aren't as fast as a pheasant in full flight by, 10 miles an hour or so. But I guess because they're small, they're quite busy birds, aren't they? That wonderful.
Sam Turner: The wing flap is faster. It's yeah, it will just.
Avian Sandercock: Seem easy to be a bit lower. And I guess when they're mixed in with the big pheasants, your brain just makes them seem faster. So most people miss them out in front, don't they?
Jake Woolf: I actually prefer shooting a partridge than a pheasant because the pheasant looks slower in the air. And so you think you've got all the time in the world. And if I don't think about it and just pull through, then I find that.
Avian Sandercock: So you're behind the pheasant and in front of the partridge. That's just the way of it, I think, isn't it?
Jake Woolf: I close my eyes.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah. Don't do that. Don't tell everyone that. I mean, one thing I've heard, and I've never seen it, but I'd absolutely love to, and I don't know if you saw this at all, Jake, obviously, because you were walking up with the dogs. But I've heard that when Grey Partridge are driven, because they're obviously on those flatter grounds, you know, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, that sort of area, that they'll come over the hedge and starburst. So you'll have a Covey group come out and just, I've never seen that. I'd love to see that.
Jake Woolf: I have seen that two seasons go on a beaters day. I was shooting an invited to on a local estate and I saw these birds coming forward. I was like, whatever are they doing? That's not like a normal partridge. I need them to be a partridge. And they almost just stopped and dropped. And I was like, goodness me. And then they turned back and they dropped back into the cover again. And I was like, what the? Anyway, luckily lads. We were allowed to shoot English that day because I got a left and a right. It's my first ever left and a right and it was on English. And there is a picture that I sent to you. I will happily share it of me looking very, very like, what have I done? Walked up to the gamekeeper so worried. And he was like, no, they're there. He said, and don't tell anyone else because they taste so good. They're mine. So I got away for that one. However, their flight is complete and they make a lovely, lovely noise as they go through. Like you said, avian, they just starburst away from you. But they come in, they almost fly like grouse. The way they top their...
Avian Sandercock: They're quite manoeuvrable birds, aren't they? Because they're, I mean, what size are they? They're sort of, I don't know, pigeon size, dove size. They're about half the size of a...
Jake Woolf: I would say so. I would say so.
Avian Sandercock: And they, as Sam said, they, when they're disturbed, they get up and on their toes or on their wings as quick as they can. But the little bit of partridge shooting I've been lucky enough to do, they come at you from all angles and, whereas pheasant will tend to fly straight for cover, these little ******* can come out of the edges and round the sides and swim round on you. I think they're great fun. But big question, come on then lads, what would you say was harder to shoot? A 40 yard pheasant or a 25 yard partridge? And why?
Sam Turner: I could miss them both all day long.
Avian Sandercock: Oh, me too, Sans.
Sam Turner: Yeah.
Jake Woolf: Okay, a 40 yard pheasant.
Sam Turner: I reckon a partridge at 25 would be more difficult than a 40 yard pheasant for me because I would give a partridge at 25 too much.
Jake Woolf: Yes, I'm with you on that after doing that this, you know, last week, that's exactly what. And I can tell you when the The Partridge are up there at 4040 plus. All right. But can I can I just say that I was being very, very lucky to have Partridge driven over me in grouse butts. So it and the reason so and I wasn't in Scotland.
Avian Sandercock: You can go off people, can't you, Sam?
Jake Woolf: You can. I'm trying, chaps. I'm trying incredibly hard. No, it was another dog training day. And we were gunned. It was a lovely, lovely day. And the place that we were at had grouse butts. They do simulated clay pigeon shooting. And they said, we're going to put you all in a grouse ****. We're going to walk this bit of sugar beet up. And we're going to put them over you. Don't shoot behind because we're doing a picking up scenario. Dogs were behind us covering 2 butts. watching for anything that fell, a walking team took up this bit of sugar beet and the noise of the feet brushing through the sugar beet and as it got closer and closer then out of nowhere this cloud of partridge just lifted and came over 5 grouse.
Avian Sandercock: Wonderful.
Jake Woolf: It was a moment that I will never, ever forget. Super. Absolutely super. So that's one of my stories.
Sam Turner: For what appears to be the professional and now well-seasoned partridge shot, Jake, are you changing up what you use for partridge compared to pheasant?
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, kit.
Jake Woolf: You mean cartridge wise?
Sam Turner: Cartridge wise, gum wise.
Jake Woolf: So I think you should start with the cartridge. A gentleman's load, a 28 gram 6 is what's often referred to for early partridge, isn't it? And I have moved away from lead ammunition for the last three seasons. So I actually shoot a standard steel 32 gram 4 in steel. But what I did for this time, because they were a bit punchy, they're certainly on early partridge, is I moved to a 30 gram 4. These were really, really good loads to use. They took them well. You could shoot them at some distance. I really like them. And I think it gave me a lot of confidence to take a more of a challenging bird.
Sam Turner: And is that that's a standard steel load, not a HP load. So you haven't got to be changing up guns and all of that.
Jake Woolf: No. And that is a separate episode. But what you're saying there was changing.
Sam Turner: It is, and obviously I'll say, check with your local gunsmith before you do put any different shot through your gun, la da. But the standard steel load is able to go through a lot more guns than a high performance steel load is what I'm saying.
Jake Woolf: Absolutely is. Absolutely is. And I don't want to, yeah, we shouldn't get carried away into the, I think for me in the lead debate there, Sam, I think for me what's important is that a nice lighter load just gives you that bit of extra confidence and you're not seeing anything, getting dispatched.
Avian Sandercock: I think your point is totally well made there, Jake, is that they're a smaller bird. I think, as we said, generally there'll be a bit closer in terms of range. But to my way of thinking, that sort of moves you onto the kind of kit you're gonna be using. And I think one of the problems, we talked briefly about 40-yard pheasant. Well, you can pretty much take a line on a 40-yard pheasant, they'll fly true and you've got a little bit of time to put your swing in and take your shot. I think with partridge, they tend to be a bit closer to you, a bit frenetic. They'll pop over a hedge or burst out of a bit of cover and you've gotta be quick. And to my way of thinking, You're kind of looking at, is a big, heavy, 32 inch, over and under 12 bore shotgun the right tool for the job? Would you not be better off if you were on a predominantly or solely partridge day to maybe look at a smaller 20 bore or 28 bore or dare I even say a cyber side? Just so you've got that little bit more manoeuvrability. You're not going for the big GT car. You want a little nimble Italian sports car to be able to make the speed up.
Sam Turner: I mean, you were doing really well there, Aventon. You put the barrels the wrong way around.
Avian Sandercock: You make a great point there.
Jake Woolf: And it also gives you a bit of fun. You don't need your thirty-two inch barrel with, you know, make it, you know, kind of example chokes and all that type of stuff. However, I've got that gun because that's the only gun I've got available to me. I think we are in the sort of ideal world. But if you can go out and have a nice walked up and driven partridge day in early September in a lighter load with a smaller bore gun, a 20 bore or even a 410, speak to our American friends. They really, really enjoy going out with small bore guns. It's becoming really popular here. Last year, Iford Downs, a friend of ours, Jamie Horner, does a wonderful partridge shoot down there.
Avian Sandercock: He certainly does.
Jake Woolf: One of the guns said, Jake, you've been taking photos of this day. Do you want to have a go? And I was like, that would be amazing. Thank you very much. I'm shooting a 410. Can you cope with that? First one that came through, now we were all stood there, we know the drive, came through, wallop. I was like, my goodness me, these 410s are brilliant. Normal service resumed, next 3 cartridges, nada.
Avian Sandercock: Bliss, bliss, bliss.
Jake Woolf: I took the camera back off. We just carried on.
Avian Sandercock: For people who don't know with the gauges, we're not going to go into it now. We'll do a different separate episode all about that. But suffice to say that a 410 doesn't have many shot in it. It's quite a small load and a small calibre and you have to be pretty good to hit anything with a 410.
Jake Woolf: And you have to have a lot of confidence if you turn up on a day with a 410 and you're the only one on a driven day with a 410 everyone's turned up in their 12s but more and more people are saying to their guests or you can buy small ball days and they're a lot of fun.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, it's becoming popular. Very popular. Again, we're looking early season, you said starts first of September. I mean, one of the other benefits there is that you're not going to be wearing your heavy tweed and your galoshes and your heavy boots and scarves and gloves. I mean, it's quite a wonderful opportunity to be out there. You could almost shoot in shirt sleeves, couldn't you? It's.
Jake Woolf: I have been. For the last two days, I was wearing collar tie, shirt and a shooting vest. it was too hot to wear anything else.
Avian Sandercock: You're not allowed to shoot in your mankini, Sam, I'm afraid.
Sam Turner: I was going to wear my string vest.
Avian Sandercock: Oh God.
Jake Woolf: Oh, now that would be a look. I would like to see that actually, Sam. I think you should do that for one of our days.
Avian Sandercock: I bet there's more holes than string, isn't it, you horrible man. That brings us to the point, why do we start in September? Why, you know, why start a month earlier than we do with the pheasant?
Jake Woolf: It brings it to the habitat and it brings it to the... how the Partridge likes its environment.
Avian Sandercock: Of course.
Jake Woolf: It enjoys those stubbly fields, those grassland areas, which are still yet to be kind of turned.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, because it'll be starting to plough October, won't they?
Jake Woolf: Yeah, absolutely. And it's for them, they're ready, they produce a lot quicker as well, and they're ready to go.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah, I heard that. They sort of mature a bit quicker pretty much as soon as they've had brought their young on, they're mature and ready to go. And I think, am I right in saying that sort of up until the autumn, the larger coveys tend to stay together, whereas as they go into the winter, they'll often break into smaller groups and just be harder to bring on and find?
Jake Woolf: Yeah, and even on my farm, it's a thoroughbred stud farm. And today I shared with you a video, I counted 20 French red leg partridges in a Covey. Now, I know that they each year they can go down to two or three in a small Covey, but this year is the best year they've had.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah.
Jake Woolf: And they're in a Covey of 20 and they're going to stick together. There is no shooting around us. Yes, we have the nearest.
Avian Sandercock: Horses don't like it, I guess, do they?
Jake Woolf: We can't shoot on you know in our area and with the value of the horses and there is very very little shooting here. The nearest shoot is about 8 miles away. Now, yes, they can come in on that. But equally, I know that I see them and it's just that excitement of seeing that covey. And you're quite right what you just said, Airave. Yes. They stick together of big groups and then they break away. I'd love to know where they go.
Avian Sandercock: I think everybody who ever puts any birds down ever. would also love to know where they go.
Sam Turner: I think that seeing as a couple of episodes ago, Jake, we were talking about you buying a nice semi-auto and then telling Mrs. Wolf shortly afterwards that you'd bought it, buy yourself a nice little hush power 410. You could shoot that around the horses.
Jake Woolf: I still can't. But Toby has got his 28 ball. He's got a junior stock.
Avian Sandercock: You could stick a shoe on it or something. I tell you what, if you duct tape a croc to the end of the stock, it'd be perfect and you'd have that bit of recoil cushion.
Sam Turner: And it means he's not wearing it fishing.
Avian Sandercock: Bloody right.
Sam Turner: You didn't say anything about crocs. No, I didn't think I had to.
Avian Sandercock: So guys, what would you rather shoot then? If you had the choice, would you rather shoot a red leg day with a bigger bag or have a go on a smaller bag day of just English grey partridge, wild grey partridge.
Sam Turner: I've shot a red leg day and I haven't, I don't think I've ever seen a grey fly. So I would like to have the opportunity to shoot a small, even a brace of greys would be awesome to have a go at.
Avian Sandercock: You've done both, Jake. It's unfair to ask you which you prefer, but Maybe sort of give us a very brief, how does it feel?
Sam Turner: If you were invited, if you're invited next year to a red leg day and a grey day on the same day, oh, oh, that's tough.
Avian Sandercock: Conflict, where are you going?
Jake Woolf: A great question.
Avian Sandercock: Red, French or English, and you could only go to one, which would it be? And the elevensies are identical.
Jake Woolf: It would be the English on a walked up English day. It really would, because they're magical creatures. the hard work that goes into them. The fauna, the flora, everything in the estate, it has to be perfect for them. And it's a privilege to shoot them. It's A privilege to go out game shooting whenever we go. But the red legs will be there tomorrow.
Avian Sandercock: That's a good point.
Jake Woolf: The wild English may not be.
Avian Sandercock: They may have gone.
Jake Woolf: And so that's my answer.
Avian Sandercock: I think we've touched on it a few times this evening that, there's obviously a clear link and unfortunately I think it's a misunderstood or ignored link by people outside of the shooting world that, you know, conservation and shooting just go hand in hand. You know, you can't have one without the other as long as you're within, you know, sensible guidelines and, you know, you use common sense and the whole thing about what we're trying to do in this country to bolster the numbers of the English partridge. But I just thought, whilst I was doing a bit of research for this episode, the one piece I came across, and I think it kind of really sums this up brilliantly, is I was unaware until we started looking at this just how widespread grey partridge are throughout Europe. And whilst I know that there's, you know, a lot of hunting is done throughout Europe, I really wasn't aware of exactly how it works over there. But this one really struck me. If you look at the different strategies in, so we've got Britain, France, and then if we pull together Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, those countries have taken very, very different approaches to protecting the numbers of wild grey partridge. So as we've talked about, in the UK and in Britain here, you know, we are looking at a habitat driven reintroduction and trying to get a growth in the wild population. And it's broadly showing some success. In Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, they've gone from a mix of either massively restricting the amount of birds that can be taken in a season under license, right the way down to in the Netherlands where they've basically banned shooting partridge altogether. And then the French being the French have taken a completely different view of it. and they have perfected rearing grey partridge in the same way that you would chickens or pheasants or turkeys or what have you, and just releasing them into suitable habitat in the wild. And I think if you have a look at the success, basically the French now are confidently taking a surplus of grey partridge every year in the order of a million and a half birds, and they're releasing a couple of million a year into the wild.
Sam Turner: I was going to say, what's their ratio of what they release as to what they then take?
Avian Sandercock: They're French. I don't know if they have a hard ratio. I think, you know, they release a couple of million and they shoot what they can find. But, you know, that shows that the numbers are robust and there is a very healthy population there. In the UK, slightly different. I don't have the numbers to hand, but, you know, it's very much an estate by estate If there's a surplus, the keepers will make a decision. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we will take some grey partridge today. If they feel they've taken the number they wanted to, we don't take any tomorrow. And we are slowly starting to see access to grey partridge shooting increasing, the numbers of wild populations increasing. Whereas if you look at the, you know, the other, the third model, you know, in Germany, I think the figures were their bag of grey partridge over the last couple of years has been 3,000. In the Netherlands, they obviously, it's banned, they shoot none at all. But in the Netherlands, they reckon now they've only got 5,000 breeding pairs.
Sam Turner: Surely that's, you know, if you look at the money that goes into the conservation over here, is down to, you know, bringing up a shootable surplus. which in turn pays for the conservation that is needed to help the population grow. So if you turn around like they have and said, right, nobody's allowed to shoot them.
Avian Sandercock: Then there's no money, there's no interest, there's no manpower, the farmers don't want to do it. And I think, you know, the debates we're facing in the UK, this is the bit that keeps being overlooked is because they never ask us lot and never listen to us that, you know, if you ban it, everything's rosy. Well, it isn't. And I think our model is showing. really healthy benefits there and whether the different debate whether releasing game birds is wonderful or not or somewhere in between it's a strategy that is protecting the wild greys and the French have gone for the route of we have the habitat, we have the countryside, we have the will and the knowledge and we will release 2 million birds a year.
Jake Woolf: Question that I have is how do you tell a grey from a ray leg?
Avian Sandercock: Now is that through binoculars when you're sat quietly or when they're coming at you at 40 miles an hour 2 inches above a hedge?
Sam Turner: That's the difficult bit, because I've struggled with the silhouette of a white pheasant before.
Avian Sandercock: Oh, there, yeah, but they look like shadows when they're up there, and they come down like little angels, then they. Yeah, they do. I don't know, I mean.
Jake Woolf: A grey feather, so a grey partridge, what's it look like? Yeah, I know it's got a grey body, but you know, is there any other defining features that you know can help the gun not to?
Sam Turner: I mean, if you're really close to it, it's got kind of an orangey browny face.
Avian Sandercock: And that tends to run down the chest a little bit. I do hear that, the males will have a slightly darker patch further down, but I don't think I could spot that at speed with one eye open. I mean, the red legs, they are, they're slightly bigger. They've got that wonderful black and white barring on the wings. They do have bright red dangly legs.
Sam Turner: I was going to say they have red legs, which is a very regular leg.
Avian Sandercock: I think also they make a very different sound, don't they?
Jake Woolf: Their wings and the way they come through the line, they're like, that's right. But it's the English which, and that's my best impression.
Avian Sandercock: Are you entering the competition with that?
Sam Turner: I'm really disappointed that people can't see that Jake was actually flapping at the same time. He was, he was.
Avian Sandercock: I wish we had video for that bit.
Jake Woolf: But what I would say is that when you're invited to a shoot and you're told no English, don't be alarmed if you're on a first day and that's board up at the morning briefing, because what the keepers or certainly the people that are on stop will normally do is blow a whistle. So if you hear through your ear defenders a whistle being blown, it's not necessarily the end of the drive. It's to Let you know that it's the English covey of English are coming through.
Sam Turner: Yeah, that covey coming out though is going to look different. Grey partridge to.
Avian Sandercock: Right, okay.
Jake Woolf: It should do, but I've been on a day where English have been shot when they shouldn't have been. And people will be listening to this saying, I shot them. I didn't. I got blamed for it. And it was, I got a big fine for that and I've never forgotten it.
Avian Sandercock: I mean, I think that's again something that, if you are going to get into this sport and you are going to get out in the field, being able to have a fairly confident knowledge of what you're pointing your gun at is essential. But I think as we've kind of touched on here, there's a little, there might be a little bit of a grey, pardon the pun, grey area, but if you concentrate, you should to be able to pick them. And I guess the main thing is not many of us are going to be fortunate enough to shoot on a shoot that has greys and red legs at the same time.
Sam Turner: I'd say only a third of us are fortunate enough to do that.
Avian Sandercock: About a third, yes, a solid third in fact.
Sam Turner: A solid third.
Jake Woolf: Right, okay, I'm not going to say anything more because I'm the **** of this joke. Gentlemen, I know that the partridge taste.
Avian Sandercock: I totally agree with you. They're lovely.
Jake Woolf: Why are they such good eating birds?
Sam Turner: Very little fat.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah. And I guess because they're that bit smaller, they don't tend, because they don't take as much cooking because they're smaller. They probably don't, they're approached differently. They don't dry out quite the way some pheasants may. And I think the problem with pheasant drying out is you tend to cook them with your, I'm cooking a chicken hat on and you cook them too long. Whereas I think with partridge, people are a bit more prepared to almost treat them like scallops and just cook it until it's done and that's enough.
Jake Woolf: Now, if they're a slightly younger bird because they've been released and we're shooting them slightly earlier and as we've discussed, are they less gamey chaps to eat?
Avian Sandercock: I think so.
Jake Woolf: Sam, what do you think?
Sam Turner: I'd say so.
Jake Woolf: Yeah.
Avian Sandercock: I mean, gamey is a funny one, isn't it? Because I think, you know, for my generation, pheasants were, you know, from if you saw your grandfather to the brace of pheasants, they were always hung in the back stoop until they were almost green and falling off the string. But I don't think they, so to me that's gamey is kind of off. Gamey with pheasants, yeah, they can have that sort of like slightly high, rich flavour to them. But I think a young partridge, as you said, Jake, it's one of the best. eating game birds out there.
Jake Woolf: I actually think that is, again, another opportunity for another episode. It's actually asking, is the partridge the best British game bird to eat? And perhaps we could look deeper into that in the future. That would be a bit of fun, wouldn't it?
Avian Sandercock: That's a good idea. Maybe we could get somebody who does cooking for a living to give us a few pointers. What do you reckon?
Sam Turner: That's not a bad idea. It's a really, really simple one, especially when you've got young kids and you just want to get them eating something. Get one of those old El Paso fajita kits.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah.
Sam Turner: And just do partridge instead of chicken.
Jake Woolf: They'll never know. They'll never know. Brilliant and they ask you for it all the time.
Sam Turner: Lower in fat, lower in cholesterol, cholesterol, whatever you call it, higher in protein, smashing.
Avian Sandercock: Fantastic. Well, listen guys, I think we've given A bit of an introduction to Partridge. Hopefully we've given people a bit of information they didn't have before and got them interested in it.
Jake Woolf: Samuel, before we go, do you just want to trail the next episode?
Sam Turner: Well, I think we might be talking about something to do with deer.
Avian Sandercock: Dear, dear, deary, deary.
Sam Turner: Oh dear.
Jake Woolf: A1 idea or no idea?
Sam Turner: I'm sorry, I haven't a clue.
Avian Sandercock: Who shall we pick? Jake, take us out, mate.
Jake Woolf: Right. that's us done. And if you're enjoying Fish and Game, chuck us a five star rating. It really, really helps. Give us a follow, share it with your mates who's all been banging on about fishing and shooting. If you've got a story to tell, a rant to have, or just fancy a natter, e-mail us at hello at sidecountry.co.uk. I promise you, we do read the emails.
Avian Sandercock: Yeah.
Jake Woolf: Right. Tight lines, hot barrels, catch you next time.