[Edit: we are loving the increased post reach we’re getting on facebook due to all the flustered pro-hunt people commenting who are clearly imagining that we’ve written things we haven’t to justify being all melodramatic. Thanks for your support!]

We did not have a meet for the hunt today, but we had an inkling about the areas they might be and having checked a couple of places we found them meeting not far from the church in Pirton.

At one point hounds were heard picking up a scent in a wood, with sab inland noticing that scared sheep were able to get out on to a road, and so she closed the gate and warned the landowner. A deer was spotted running down towards sab on the road, who was able to slow a car down in time to avoid a collision. Foxes often run the same line of deer, to help confuse the scent, so we were keeping an eye out and, sure enough, a fox ran on to the road in the same place. We’re pretty certain supporters who saw him would have holloa’d the huntsman if sab hadn’t been present. That fox successfully made their escape.

With waterlogged land in various places (and angry homeowners in the nearby area where they trespassed through gardens just a couple of weeks ago) they seemed a little limited for areas to draw. They spent most of the afternoon around a couple of woods in Wadborough, only really changing location when hounds rioted on deer in Dufty Coppice and when loose hounds were running off around Crabbe Farm.

Some fantastic parenting skills seen in action today with young riders clearly thinking it acceptable to kick and whip horses hard in lieu of actually learning some riding skills. It’s no surprise really when the examples are set to them by some of the adult supporters we run into…

(footage to be added soon!)