Last day of August

We set off to walk around the mega field, but when we arrived the half growing corn was being harvested.  Far too much dust and noise, so we chose a different field to circumnavigate!  

We hadn't walked very far along the field edge and I thought that the few birds in the field, away to our right hand side, looked a bit odd.  I stood and shielded my eyes as I peered into the sun when a voice, from nowhere, said 'Hello".  That was a surprise!  And there was a character who would have stepped quite nicely out of Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals.  Quite eccentrically dressed from head to toe in various sorts of camouflage material, adorned with a number of badges and bits and bobs, and accompanied by a beautiful black and white spaniel, this chap emerged from a ramshackle hide on the edge of the field.  It was a quite a large affair and I did briefly wonder if he actually lived there!  The odd looking birds were his own version of decoy birds, only they were real birds which he must have shot, stuffed and then placed in odd positions with wires!  Most bizarre and rather ghoulish!  He was a very friendly chap, set up to shoot pigeons and crows "to help the farmer out".  We had a little chat and then the dogs and I walked on, coming back a different way!