*** Two sabs keep hunt on run all morning and rate hounds off the scent of a hunted fox ***

The Cotswold Hunt were due to meet just outside of Winchcombe this morning and so we headed over to keep them company and watched them leave the meet, at Cockbury Butts, from a misty hill in the sunrise. Up towards Stanley Hill Barn, the hunt drew blank* in a number of coverts, moving on quickly between them when they saw us watching and they headed downhill towards Langley Farm.

*drawing blank means that no scent was picked up on

Hounds picked up in a covert where one sab was hiding up and another spotted a fox making a run for it along a hedgeline, getting to the area in time to rate** the hounds off the line.

**rating is basically ‘telling off’ when the hounds are doing something they shouldn’t be – it can be using your voice or the crack of a whip (or loud clapping of your hands if you don’t have a whip)

Picking up again on another scent elsewhere, hounds ran back towards the covert they’d just chased the fox from and were rated by the sab there, before being taken south and towards Langley Brook. We must have been having an effect as they spent hardly any time in there, drew blank and went off back to the meet where they quikcly drew a covert before leaving as we rocked up once more. The pack up was accompanied by a car alarm soundtrack coupled with some trantrums being thrown at a local woman who had called the police about their illegal activities.

Being in cull zones, many hunt meets give us a perfect opportunity to keep an eye out for cull activities as well as the usual illegal sett blocking, etc which we keep tabs on. A successful morning (though not for the sourfaced hunters who offered us hunt meets for other hunts if we would leave them alone…).

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