Tuesday 18 October 2016

Andrew steps up to dream job as head gamekeeper at Raby Estates

FEW people get to turn their hobby into their dream job, but Raby Estate’s new head gamekeeper is one of those people.
Andrew Hyslop’s love for the countryside was born out of his upbringing on a Wolsingham sheep farm. Even then, at the age of 12, he was out with the gamekeepers at any opportunity.
Today, aged only 29, has taken over the management of the vast grouse moors of upper Teesdale and realised his dream.
He was well groomed for the job, having worked under the guiding hand of Lindsay Waddell for the better part of a decade.
He said: “I have been here 12 years. I’ve enjoyed it, he was a very good mentor. When I first started here I was travelling over from Stanhope. Lindsay and Glynis were just like second parents to me, if it was bad weather, snow, anything, there was always a bed and dinner ready if I needed it.”
Although he had worked with gamekeepers in Wolsingham part time for many of his teenage years, his first real opportunity to enter the field was when he was offered to join Raby Estate through its youth training scheme.
After completing the year-and-a-half long course, he was given the beat keepers job at Harwood.
He said: “I have been here ever since. I do like Harwood. It is an interesting ground, it is 18,000 acres and I’ve looked after for 11 years.
“I came to Raby and it is the place for me. There is nowhere like it to be perfectly honest, you talk to a lot of keepers and the population of waders and black game we have is incredible.
“Last year we had ten per cent of the UK’s population of black game on Raby Estates.
“In springtime the top end of the dale is crawling with vehicles cruising around with big lenses out the window taking photographs – that just shows it is a one-of-a-kind, kind of place. There aren’t many places where you can step out your door on a morning and within 100 yards you have lapwing, curlew, red shank, oyster catchers and sand martins on the beck.”
The Harwood part of the estate, Mr Hyslop said, was previously used almost exclusively for Lord Barnard’s family events, and he described looking after it as a privilege.
The head gamekeeper attributes the abundance of birdlife to effective management of the land – burning the old heather and ridding the area of pests and predators.
Oddly, it is the birds themselves that are a gamekeeper’s best warning system, Mr Hyslop admits.
He said: “Having all of these waders around here makes a gamekeeper’s job a hundred times easier. It is like having an alarm system on your doorstep. At spring time it is our biggest time of year for pest control. If you just sit and open your ears, all the waders tell you what is where. If there is a stoat on the ground, they will do the alarm call, what we call marking. If you just sit and listen for that, you don’t have to go looking because it will tell you where it is at.”
Among the vermin gamekeepers control are stoat, weasel, fox and rats.
Burning of heather is a sensitive issue and while conservationist say it destroys habitats, Mr Hyslop’s experience suggests not.
He said: “Quite the opposite – 90 per cent of curlews we have will nest on burnt ground. It is only because we are here doing what we do, controlling the pest and predators, that we have such quantities.
“It is a perfect, untouched sort of dale”
Mr Hyslop took over the head game keeper role in March this year soon after Mr Waddell’s retirement.

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