A long wait, then Stan’s the man

I received an unexpected phone call from the Editor a week before the start of the shooting season. I thought he had phoned to pass some time as he made his way from London back to Dumfriesshire, but I was pleasantly surprised when he kindly invited me duck flighting on the first Saturday of the season.

It’s a 28-mile drive between my house on the Solway and the Editor’s home, taking in some stunning rural scenery on winding backroads. The change in landscape is the most noticeable difference between these two distinct parts of Dumfries and Galloway. However, if you delve into the ecological workings of a place, you soon notice local variances, even when the sites are only separated by a few miles.

These ecological differences may be easy to explain and are usually linked directly to the adjacent landscape or prevailing