Off to Leicestershire! A famous old pack on a leaden skied day. Farm yard meet:
Stars of the show. I like the one brown hound, he must be pretty good!
And here's something one does not see every day! The current law allows the use of hounds to flush game to hawks. Including Golden Eagles!!
Which reminds me, check out my favourite "waste of tax dollars"!
A fairly small field. Have to apologise for the picture quality. This camera is new and appears to have a drinking problem.
Definitely a galloping country!
Drawing, drawing.
Powerful horses running hard!
Now what goof would park a hire car out here in the middle of a field...
Wait, is that a...
Hare!
Big open spaces by home standards.
Hoped to see some jumping of these hedges, but no.
Hounds ran into this wood, and rolled around for a bit. That rough, coarse throaty sound again, not as strong as in the West but still magnificent.
So I rolled well ahead, just doing and not thinking. Found myself alone at the end of a farm tack on a hill top. Nothing but me and some sheep.
Oh well.
Did get to see hounds charging hard down a hillside, loud and strong. Beautiful to see their strength and power, the way they just fling themselves after the scent. That's all hounds are really, nose delivery vehicles.
Hey, whats that in the corner of my eye?
Well look'ee there!
Up close:
"Out of my way, sheeps!"
Fortunately my camera sobered up a bit for these pictures.
Just over a minute and a half and over the hill they came.
Running mute, but well.
Then into these sheep, not as many or as dense as the last flocklet...
And whoof!
Um, uh, what were we a smellin' of?
No holloa from me of course, that would be illegal!
Crossed right where the fox did- well past the sheep. Nothing at all, not the slightest sign that hounds smelled anything. Amazing.
And a wide, around your hat cast. Nothing at all.
A fiery steed!
On we went, drawing and drawing through this prosperous country.
Alright. My camera is drunk but I am cold sober. WHAT is that in that field??
Il Porcellino !!
Full size, too!
Hounds were now faaaar away, still drawing but no luck. Evening, and rain, coming.
Waiting at a gate, another fox crossed right to left. He actually IS in this picture- you can see him entering the left hand tire track, about two or three strides out from that little cabin thing.
He brought hounds along- just over seven minutes-
And as you can see,
again, absolutely no interest. Zero. Not a feather, not a yip.
All this, again, under text book good scenting conditions.
Oh well. At least we were out, when they ran they ran hard, the music was great, and the hounds were lovely to see.
As was that fox! Interesting fodder for my upcoming "Scent is like God" meditation.
1 comment:
[Here from your comments at Sondrakistan]
Great Scott! ! ! Are they still doing that sort of thing in Formerly Great Britian???? I thought surely they'd outlawed that primitive practice a while back. I must write a letter to the Times! ! !
PS: Great photos (the ones that turned out). It's probably hard to take a bad photo of an eagle.
(Is that one of ours, or do they abide over there as well?)
PPS: That's quite a good photo/story. The earlier one, too. Good show!
I'll be back latter for more British bloodthirstiness.
Post a Comment