The first real fall of snipe

Snipe are wonderful sporting enigmas. Here today and gone tomorrow, it is desperately difficult to predict their movements during the shooting season. Here in Galloway, the first falls of autumn snipe come in the light of an October full moon.

I like to walk my dogs before sunrise in the autumn, so I can hardly fail to spot the birds when they come. Even before I am out of bed, the sound of snipe calling comes in through the curtains and provides an early-warning system.

Flittering in the half-dark of dawn, three or four dozen snipe will be flushed by the dogs in a short walk of less than a mile around the bottom fields. At their peak, the sound of small waders is all around