Meet: East Kent Hunt
Location: Covert Wood, nr Barham
Due to a late start, we missed the chance of following the hound lorry to the hunt meet but, as the ground was so wet due to recent heavy rain, we took an educated guess that the hunt would be hunting in large wooded areas (30 horses trampling across boggy fields can cause considerable damage to farmland).
We found the hunt at about midday at Covert Wood, near Barham, so had missed 45 minutes of hunting. The huntsman, Richard Blakney, was in no rush to cover as much ground as he normally does, which suggested that they were only allowed or able to hunt a small area.
It took some time for the hunt to pick up the scent of a fox, which took them to the Barham end of the wood, known as Collardshill Wood. Unfortunately this happened during a heavy fall of snow, which made spotting them very difficult. We caught up with them some time later and were unsure of the outcome of the chase, but this time we kept up with them on foot, which was easy due to the huntsman's sedate pace.
Back in Covert Wood, the hounds went into cry which a few minutes later turned into barking. It was becoming apparent that the hounds were stationary, which would only mean that they had run a fox to ground. We all ran towards the barking only to see red-coated riders, one of which (the whipper-in) was trying to get the pack of hounds away from an uprooted tree tha tthe fox had obviously taken refuge under. It is normally at this point that the terrier men are called to dig the fox out - but not this time as we surrounded the treee stump to show the huntsmen thjat were were not going to let them dig out.
The hunt then went off so we braced ourselves for a showdown with the terrier men but it did not happen. As it was getting late we decided to sacrifice the rest of the day and stand guard over the fox just in case the "spade brigade" did turn up. Once it got dark it was obvious that the hunt was not prepared to have a showdown with us as we had a good number of sabs and the police not there to back them up.
Whilst most of our group were guarding the fox, our driver and passenger found an injured squirrel laying in the snow. They wrapped it in a blanket nad put it near the van heater to keep it warm. Unfortunately the animal died later that night. It is thought it had head injuries from either being hit by a car or possibly had a fall as it was found near a dray up a high tree. The fox had better luck that day as digouts nearly always result in the dearth of a fox - not before being injured in an underground dog fight with a stronger animal.