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Shotgun Wedding

1963 , Blakeney (Norfolk)

Cat no. 706

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Television documentary examining the rivalry between wildfowlers and birdwatchers.

Birds fly as a birdwatcher and a wildfowler walk on the marshes: a poster advertises a meeting of the Wildfowlers' Association to discuss sanctuary proposals. At the meeting a birdwatcher addresses the wildfowlers. The speaker emphasises that the birdwatchers seek a chain of wildfowl refuges. They are not against shooting but wish to protect feeding and roosting grounds. Wildfowler, Stratton Long is on an early morning shoot. At his cottage, he prepares to leave at 5.25 in the morning, joining his friend in the van. Arriving at the marsh, they continue on foot to the sea line. Birds soar including mallards and teal, widgeon and shelduck. The men start back as the tide begins to turn. Stratton Long tells a tale of a time when he was deliberately distracted by a birdwatcher, a story he re-enacts. He traces the antipathy between the two groups to the 1954 Act of Parliament shortening the shooting season and placing the Brent Goose on the list of protected species. Finally, at a decoy pond at Burgh Fen in Lincolnshire operated by the Wildfowl Trust, an operation pioneered in Holland is in place where tame, hand-reared geese are used as decoys, similarly at a wildfowl refuge in Scotland on the Salway Marshes.

Keywords

Wildlife Protection; Field Sports; Ornithology; Birdwatchers; Wildfowlers

Other Places

Blakeney; Burgh Fen, Lincolnshire; Holland; Morston; Salway Marshes, Scotland.

Manifestations

Shotgun Wedding

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