Notes from the Actual Countryside COUNTRY SQUIRE MAGAZINE

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BY GARY BAXTER

You may think that my Notes from the actual countryside rants are nothing but rants but believe me they convey the true strength of feeling in the British Countryside. We really are getting more than just a little bit pissed off out here in the sticks!

We are tired of the townie rabble. Chavs and spivs dressed up as ‘doctors’ or TV Presenters telling us we are damaging the wild places whether in Scotland, Wales or England. We are done listening to the bloody office wallas and their ill thought out, stupid plans that have so far saved NOTHING yet all they do is blame us countrysiders for the RSPB screw ups whether they are North in Scotland, South in England or West in Wales. It’s the countryman’s fault as far as they are concerned – and how wrong these myopic bigots are.

Well over the last few years of my life, 54 on national Guinness day to be precise, I have learned that the organisations that the public put millions of pounds into, complete nothing to save any of the species that actually need saving. It’s almost as if our thoughts – those of families who have tended to the Countryside for generations – DONT FUCKING WELL MATTER !!

Well, let me tell you this – just lately I have got a severe allergic reaction to what you might ask ?

STUPID PEOPLE, mostly in the towns and cities, who actually believe the bullshit coming from the mouths of RSPB pencil necks, the water authorities and a few other reprobates that I really can’t be arsed to name as it only makes me grumpier having to think of them.

Now I see on social media that the naturalist explorer Steve Backshall has got Thames Water by the throat and is giving them a good shake. What he showed on his Instagram page that was being pumped into the Thames resembles poo porridge. Untreated sewage in huge areas. More shite than a Wild Justice manifesto. I really hope you are now at them Steve. I hope you manage to get it stopped as the damage those buggers are doing will take years to put right – you have the Countryside right behind you, unlike that BBC (or is he ex-BBC yet) colleague of yours who wants to be the next Attenborough but is to Truth what Josef Mengele was to child skin care.

I see now that a certain team of lawyers that our friend uses are having a go at the poultry farmers on the River Wye as they say chicken poop run off is damaging the river!! FUNNY THAT !! You buggers can’t have a go at the water authorities but you can have a go at our farmers can’t you? I wonder who is pulling your strings! As if we didn’t bloody know. SHAME YOU CANT DO SOMETHING USEFUL and try and stop the sewage pollution like Mr Backshall, who has the opportunity to have the country behind him and is well used to handling live snakes.

As I was heading into that bane of my life today – our wonderful capital – I near had a severe fit of laughing while listening to that Jeremy Vine bloke. He was harping on about our hedge pigs and how some overpriced Uni anorak big money study was going to help save them by putting cameras up all over the bloody shop to see how many species of hedge pig they can find. That’s what the uni educated shelf stacker said honestly. By god that show’s always good for a laugh. Right, listen up you plonker there is 1 species of hedgepig on this island ok have you got that? 1 !!!!!

And regardless what dear old Brian (May) says and that other bloody idiot if you really want to save hedgehogs it’s so simple to do. START BY CONTROLLING BADGERS. OK? Can you manage that?

Go see that blithering bloody imbecile at Natural England and get the truth through his thick head as it’s the only way you can save them.

If the truth be known there really are way too many stripeys around now just in my local area I have seen about 60 flat on the tarmac in the last week or so I wonder how many of our hogs have been splattered too.

I have been waiting since the Scottish Parliament went ahead with their licensing scheme for the grouse moors to see how long it would be before that shower of shitebags at Sandy started screaming RAPTOR PERSECUTION North of the border. It didn’t take long. I reckon it was about 3 days !! Got to be a record that has.

Raptor persecution is a stuck record. Those who call it are a joke these days. Talk about the boy crying wolf. They might as well be shouting Velociraptor Persecution – no one believes them.

Anyway, yet again another harrier has gone AWOL apparently, yet again tagged, and they say it’s been killed. More likely spliced by a wind turbine.

Can I ask a question here please?

You tag these birds with the biggest most cumbersome telemetry transmitters I have ever seen and they must be the most unreliable on the market looking at how many birds go missing then suddenly these birds reappear a few weeks or months later. Now as a falconer /austringer that’s a bloke who flies broadwing or shorting hawks as well as long wings surely to hell you must be able to get hold of better units than the ones you use that are half the size, operate on solar power and are also GPS?

Have you supposedly clever buggers at the BTO ever thought of trying other units at all?? And while I am on the subject of the British Trust Ornithology I must say well done to you for finally seeing sense and stopping these TV personalities from molesting our different birds. About time that was stopped. Too many have died just for the glorification of the uneducated shysters who think they are god’s gift to our natural world!! What kind of pervert sniffs birds anyways? FFS. Bird sniffing ought to be an arrestable offence. At least if I went out and sniffed the birds around Northampton way I’d get a punch in the gob from whoever I sniffed and when I got home I’d get another from my Mrs. But actual bird sniffing – they are innocent creatures and can’t punch back, the poor bastards. The BTO ought to open a birdsniffer register. How would you like to be sniffed by that creep and his like? Bloody disgusting behaviour. 3 sniffs and you’re in jail – or an asylum more like.

I had a call last week from an old friend of mine who farms on the peak district park who through a croaky voice (who hasn’t got flu these days?) told me he had lost 20 ewes in lamb that morning to a couple of uncontrolled DOGS. Now that is not a nice sight for anyone to behold. He had managed to get those responsible as he carries his rifle everywhere this time of year as he has regular drop-offs from some animal hospital bunch who think its OK to tip town foxes out all over the shop this time of year. He asked me if I could put a plea out to you my Dear Readers: if you are out and about this weekend with your dogs, please put them on a lead near livestock and please think of our ground nesting birds.

Thank You.

Now before I go I must tell you of a most embarrassing thing that happened some years ago.

I had not long put birds to wood – about 2 days if my memory serves me right – and I was busy running food and water about in the Hilux one afternoon when I nipped up to one of our larger woodlands to find a car parked right outside the gate blocking my entry (please note: DONT BLOCK GATES ).

So, I jumped out the truck climbed the 5 bar gate to see some bloke leaning on my bales watching my pheasants walking about inside the release pen!! Well, I must admit I flipped. I tore into this person, unknown to me, asking him what the bloody hell he thought he was doing blocking my gate, ignoring signs of private, keep out, and so on.

As this bloke turned around I wished the ground could have swallowed me up. It was a real Naturalist and proper lover of the countryside, Dr David Bellamy. Now that man knew his stuff. Respect.

It’s a bloody disgrace that the BBC treated him like they did and gave way to the clueless who can’t tell an avocet from an oyster catcher and seem to think it was ok for horses to chew the cud. Let’s hope Backshall comes through and stands up for reason amidst the fruitcake outliers on the Beeb. That way Attenborough has someone who can pick up some of his legacy even if, unlike his good self, he turns down a bacon sarnie.

Happy death by chocolate weekend all and don’t forget the clocks !!!

Gary Baxter is the son of a gamekeeper, is an ex gamekeeper and has run his own falconry based bird control business for the last 20 years.