Mike Swan

Mike Swan

Mike has been a member of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust advisory team since 1982, having previously completed a PhD in Botany. He runs his own small shoot in Dorset, as well as enjoying wildfowling, fishing and woodland stalking. He runs the GWCT’s tertiary education programme, and provides advice on game management and conservation to gamekeepers, shoot managers, farmers and conservation organisations across southern England, the southwest, and throughout Wales.

fox predation control

  • February 17, 2021

Let’s start by noting the words ‘predation control’, rather than predator. In managing game and wildlife, how many predators you kill is of no great relevance; rather it is the…

Waiting on the peg

  • January 30, 2021

With the season all but over, my mind as usual turns to planning for the next. In just a few weeks, the pheasants will be setting up their territories, strutting…

woodcock shooting

  • December 12, 2020

Woodcock have a reputation of being unpredictable in their movements, here today and gone tomorrow. So you could be forgiven for feeling that whether or not you shoot them makes…

duck flighting

  • September 23, 2020

There is hardly a more exciting sound in the world of shooting than the rush of air through duck wings as they drop in at evening flight. Every time I…

Grouse moor

  • August 12, 2020

Coming from the soft south, 
I didn’t see a live grouse until I was 19. That was in the summer of 1974, when I took off to the Cairngorms for…

how to call a fox

  • May 5, 2020

Wise keepers make life as difficult as possible for those pheasant pen predators intent on finding a tasty meal. Birds are usually lost in two ways: Mass kills of poults…

duck breeds

  • January 15, 2020

Identifying different duck breeds The question “What’s that one then?” should never be heard from the person who shot a bird, so knowing what the odd unusual duck looks and…

Greylag geese

  • October 23, 2019

Have you noticed how often ducks coming to a flight pond come in twos, especially later in the season? It’s no accident — by this time of year the breeding…

coypu

  • August 21, 2019

At up to 3ft long including the tail, and weighing perhaps 9kg, the coypu is fairly impressive for a rodent. It is not quite a capybara or a beaver, but…

Shooting a Beretta

  • April 19, 2018

David Jamieson, West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, wants a fee increase so police are not “subsidising gun ownership” I am pleased to see that BASC’s Bill Harriman is suitably…

woodcock

  • November 16, 2017

Sportsmen and women are being asked to refrain from shooting woodcock until 1st December, in new guidelines issued by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT). This is due to…

feeding tips

  • August 18, 2016

With the pheasant release process well under way on most shoots, careful feeding of our growing poults is a main task for the majority of low-ground keepers as July turns into August. As the birds begin…

Greylag

  • August 17, 2016

It was a still, bright October evening at Llanrhidian in West Wales, and Tom and I had decided to try for a shot at evening flight. Being in the outer reaches of the Bristol…

release pens

  • July 27, 2016

Time and again as I wander into the depths of a wood in my role as a Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) game adviser, I come across an embarrassment. The combination of tatty fencing, battered…