Ingredients:

Red Deer Liver - coarsely ground. I used a blender.

An equal amount of coarsely ground shoulder of pork. The butcher ground the shoulder pork up for me.

Local home cured and smoked streaky bacon. This was cured and smoked by my local butcher.

One small onion. Pan fried in butter until translucent.

A couple of cloves of garlic finely chopped.

Chopped Sage and Tyme.

Sea Salt and coarsely ground black pepper.

A handful of breadcrumbs. This is important to keep the pate moist.

A small glug of good red wine, I used Rioja or port.

Mix the incredients in a large bowl thoroughly by hand.

Line a pate dish or loaf tin with the streaky bacon. Layer the bacon over the top of the pate.

Cook in a Bain Marie (a dish with some water in it) for 1.5 hours in the oven on a medium heat.

It's ready. Cool and serve.

The Red Deer and Muntjac loins were marinated in olive oil, salt and pepper. Left to room temperature before cooking. Browned in pan, then about 8min in oven..

The haunch of muntjac was cooked in the slow cooker with Blackberries, vegetable stock, red wine and creme de cassis.

The loins were served with pretty much same, but the sauce on the loins much more reduced into a jus. They were served on a bed of sautéed leeks.

This is Andy's multi bird Christmas Roast. All of the birds were deboned. But the legs and wings were left on the Turkey.

From the outside:

Turkey,

Guinea Fowl

Mallard

Pheasant

Partridge

Woodcock

2 Quail

Wood pigeon

A recipe from a friend of mine.

Tuscan Rabbit Stew:

Flour the rabbit, fry till golden & put in pressure cooker. Add tomatoes thyme and garlic. Add white wine and balsamic vinegar and cook till tender.

Fantastic day on the grouse moors. Being late in the season the grouse were very jumpy, this made for some challenging shooting. The grouse got up quickly, at distance and flew fast. We mainly walked them up, but also did 3 drives. 20 brace at the end of the day between 7 guns. Cracking day!

Every year we make an annual pilgrimage to the grouse moors in Northern England. A small team of friends walking in a line across the sea of pink heather. It's a beautiful place, that has to be seen to appreciate. Most of the worlds heather moorland occurs in the UK and in August the heather is in flower, blanketing the landscape.

We meet the night before to enjoy a few beers, a meal and banter between friends. You need a good feed, as the day on the moors requires miles of walking, across some pretty testing ground. The heather itself gets tiring when walking over for it hours, combined with long grass, occasional bracken and streams. So the grouse are hard earned.

We don't shoot many. This year the 8 guns shot 37 grouse, but this is more than enough for us and we all get a brace for the table.

We walked most of the grouse up, but we did do 2 mini drives, from the butts. On this day the wind was up, making the grouse fast and challenging to shoot. The grouse often taking on the wind speed as they fly. During the 2 mini drives, the grouse were driven with the wind and towards us. They literally come over you like little missiles. With a 20 mph wind they are probably flying at speeds of 70-80+ mph as they flash over the top of you, 10-50ft high. Too difficult for most of the guns, who find them too challenging and fast to shoot.

When we walk up the grouse, we try to walk slowly in an evenly spaced line across the moors. Every so often a covey of grouse will lift and rocket away from us in a variety of directions. Sometimes a bird or two will lift, other times a covey of 20 or more. You have no idea when, where or how many will rise from the heather. It's this unknown and the anticipation that makes the experience so exciting.

On this particular moor we saw plenty of black grouse, which was wonderful to see. There is a volentary ban on shooting Black Grouse on most moors, due to their declining numbers and so we are very careful to ensure that we don't shoot them and we haven't made a mistake to date.

By the end of the day, you feel worn out from a long days walking and we all have a few birds to take home for the table. It's a rare and special experience to us all. The beautiful pink heather moorlands and the amazing Red Grouse are a truly wonderful and very unique to Britain. I feel very privilaged that I get to experience doing this once a year. And enjoy the opportunty to be able to cook and eat one of our wonderful wild game birds.

I will try to include a grouse cooking blog. My wife makes a beautiful plum sauce for them.

A couple of rabbits shot for the pot.

I use 3 main methods.

Sitting and waiting for them to appear fr their burrows and shooting them at distance with my 17HMR.

Or lamping them at night with my 22LR.

I also enjoy working the hedges with my Cocker Spaniel - Purdey and shooting them with my shotgun as they bolt.

Occasionally I will use an airgun.

You have to "pee" them immediately as rabbits are a Mediterranean species and retain their urine in order to preserve the water in their bodies. If you don't "pee" them immediately they taint and taste of ammonia. You do this by squeezing the middle of the belly between their legs I order to make them wee.

My preferred way to cook them is in a pie with mushrooms and chicken soup.

If you simmer a rabbit in salt water for a few hours, the meat just falls off of the bone. In my opinion this is the best way to get the meat off off the rabbit. You can then do whatever you wish with the meat.

Another passion of mine, shooting wood pigeons.

Wood pigeons generally land into the wind and so by arranging the decoys in a "U shape" the base of the U facing the wind, the pigeons will tend to drop in and land in the middle of the U.

A pigeon magnet can draw the pigeons in from miles away. It's quite amazing to watch. You can see little dark specks in the distance coming in the distance and head towards your decoys and magnet.

I find pigeon shooting very exciting. The pigeons can drop in at many speeds and angles, or just fly over to have a look at the decoys. When they see you, or they hear a shot, they often jink and fly away at speed. This makes the shooting highly varied and exciting!

I've tested a number of different .410 cartridges in my Baikal .410 moderated shotgun, in order to find the quietest cartridges.

I've tested:

Eley 2.0, 2.5 & 3.0 inch (super & subsonic).

Lyalvale Express 2.0, 2.5 & 3.0 inch.

Gamebore 2.0, 2.5 & 3.0 inch

Fiocchi 3.0 inch.

The results were interesting. All the cartridges above seem to emit a supersonic crack, except the Eley 3 inch 18gram subsonics and Eley Fourlong 2.5 inch.The 3 inch subsonic cartridges, do not emit a sonic crack, but are still relatively loud compared to the fourlongs.

But by far the quietest were the Eley Fourlong 12.5gram 2.5 inch. These are so quiet that you can hear the hammer of the gun and the shot hitting pigeons. Not as quiet as a moderated 22LR using subsonics, but very quiet.

I took a selection apart to see how much and what type of powder these cartridges contained.

The Eley 2.0 and 2.5 inch contained what looked like the same type of powder. The 2.5 inch Fourlong's contained the least amount of powder.

The Eley 3 inch super & subsonic cartridges contained a very fine fast burning powder, that looked identical. Although the subsonics contained 4.0 grains less powder. I assume this is to reduce the speed of the cartridge, in order to make it subsonic.

The Lyalvale Express 2.5 & 3.0inch contained different powders.

Wednesday evening and out stalking for the fifth time this year. I'm training to be a competent deerstalker and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with my mentor a very experienced and qualified deer manager.
 The evening was drawing in but the light was very good and conditions ideal for watching the woods and all it's inhabitants. We had been quietly observing for several hours, seeing buzzards mating and plenty of rabbits and magpies, when in the corner of the second field the hind quarters of a deer appeared. We watched for several minutes as the buck grazed into the wind. It was moving slowly away from our position and not presenting at a good angle for a clean shot. We assessed the condition and size and agreed that if the shot became viable I would take it. After several more minutes, that felt like an age, the shot was on. On my first buck this made me concentrate very hard so as to do the best I could for this buck if I were to take the shot. When we were comfortable I took the shot and we watched and waited. In just a few brief seconds we confirmed a clean kill. Then I started to feel very responsible for the buck and the care of it as I started to learn more about field preperation.
It is difficult to explain the feeling of attachment and responsibility but it is all very important to gain an insight into how this deer interacted with its environment. He was around 7 years old with malformed antlers. This could have been from birth or an injury when young. Several other features could also have contributed to its malformation. This buck was towards the end of his feeding life and teeth showed signs of wear.
I know that during the stalk and after I did as much as I could to learn and gain valuable experience in managing deer and this was truly a privilege to be a part of.
This was my first Roe buck and as a 7 point malformed it's one I will always remember.