An entire week of driven grouse shoots has come to an end. And what a week it was! I have been in the very privileged position of being a loader – that is I get to sit in a cosy butt out of the wind and rain enjoying watching the birds fly over and every now and again casually passing a cartridge to the chap shooting. Mmm… not quite the way it works. All the loaders gather at the lodge in the morning where we collect our guns, cartridges and butt sticks and load them into the Landrovers. When the guests are ready (after breakfast, tea, coffee, a cigarette, some more tea and another couple of cigarettes) we head out to where the shoot will take place. By this time the beaters will already have taken position somewhere along the hills from where they will walk towards the butts, in theory driving the grouse ahead of them - lots of flapping of flags, whistling, shouting and dogs careering around seem to be the norm although an amazingly straight line is maintained the entire time. This is solely the responsibility of Fred and his team of keepers and the entire success of the operation depends on the efficiency of the line. Not an easy task by any means, although the Invermark keepers make it seem so simple.

Back at the butt, I have set up the butt stick, placing them upright on either side of the butt to act as a guide for the gun in order to prevent any shooting in the direction of the other guns. Safety always comes first! I then remove the guns from their cases then check and load the barrels. Once the drive commences, all that needs to be done is to spot the grouse as they come winging along and to keep the guns loaded at all times during the drive. This task is easily accomplished when there are relatively few grouse flying. As the numbers pick up though, the pressure is on and guns are firing away all along the line with any number of choice expletives being thrown in for good measure as birds are missed and whiz past totally unscathed. Once the drive has come to an end, the dog handlers and keepers send their hounds through the line to pick up all the birds. With every gun and loader having more or less marked where their birds fell and the dogs coming through I would be surprised if even one or two birds a week are lost. The drive is so well planned and executed that almost every bird shot is located within minutes and brought back in to be counted.  Perhaps I should get a dog to assist me with finding rhino on Tswalu…