Table of contents for February 2026 in The Field

Sarah Kate Byrne Sarah Kate Byrne has written for The Field since 2018 after a chance offer to cover a ladies’ day with the Tynedale. Later that year she appeared as one of the magazine’s Sporting Dianas. Her musings tend to be equine heavy, which isn’t surprising given her paternal stud-farming lineage. In this issue she reports from her day hunting in Florida with the Palm Beach Hounds. Her main job as a fashion stylist sees her both write and style for Ascot, The Jockey Club and other racing bigwigs on fashion on the turf. What does February hold? “Hopefully an adventure to rival last year’s trip to Tanzania with Kaskazi Horse Safaris; some time on the slopes; and getting my eye in ahead of a busy flat-racing season styling…

Lapwing and curlew are among the red-listed ground-nesting birds at risk from badger predation, new research has uncovered. A study of comprehensive camera-trap data from across the UK showed that badgers were responsible for 41.7% of wader nest predation, followed by foxes at 23%. Nests were found to be particularly vulnerable in periods of very cold or dry weather when badgers’ staple diet of earthworms is less readily available. “Continued improvement and restoration of habitat is critical for wader conservation but without predation management it can be in vain,” said Dr Andrew Hoodless, director of research at the GWCT – one of the organisations, including the RSPB and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, that contributed data to the study. “This paper provides a valuable picture of the scale and nature…

SET ON the River Test and seven miles from Winchester, this Grade II*-listed country house and sporting estate has 122 acres of land, including pasture, woodland and water meadows. In addition to fishing on the Test, there is a family shoot with four drives. Dating from the early 1700s, the 10-bedroom house is built in the style of a French château and overlooks the renowned chalkstream. The gardens feature terraces and lawns and there is an orchard, a swimming pool with pool house, a tennis court, a fishing hut and a courtyard with three stables, together with tack and feed rooms. There is also a chapel, a listed granary and three further cottages in the sale. Agent: Savills ♦ Tel: 020 7409 8881 ♦ Guide price: £16.75m Properties of the…

FEBRUARY is a quiet fishing month in the UK. Salmon are hard won, pike are slow to move to a fly and winter rainbows or a late grayling are the only realistic quarry. But are we missing a trick? Early spring and late autumn are seen as the prime months for chasing coastal sea-trout in the archipelagos of the Scandinavian south. The theory is that trout are feeding hard in shallow water, confident in the low light and active in the cool, but not freezing, water and, as modern clothing comfortably repels the cold, there is no better way to blow the winter cobwebs away. I like early-spring fishing, and over the years pictures of shining coastal sea-trout up to 10 pounds and more have lit a gentle fire in…

New England twinned with the Cotswolds Should really be called Old England as the old sports of hunting (horseback hunting), shooting (bird hunting) and stalking (deer hunting) are enjoyed by most living outside the big cities. Texas twinned with Yorkshire Forthright and fiercely independent, sporting enough to feature on an Olympic medal table in their own right (which they think they should). Dallas is home to Holland & Holland’s US gunroom. Tennessee twinned with Northumbria The locals are as tough as their shooting is challenging. US congressman and famed turkey hunter Davy Crockett led a band of Tennessee volunteers to the Battle of the Alamo, remarking: “Tennesseans will travel some for a fight.” Just like the Jarrow marchers. Middle America twinned with Staffordshire and Derbyshire Being overlooked as ‘fly-over states’…

THERE IS an oft-used saying among many collectors that if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Unfortunately, in the instance of one particular sword in the Royal Armouries collection that may well be the case. In June 1794, towards the end of the so-called ‘Reign of Terror’, the French revolutionary National Convention agreed on the formation of the École de Mars (School of Mars; Mars being the Roman god of war). This college was to be a civic and military academy for the sons of radical, working-class revolutionaries, sometimes dubbed the Sans-Culottes due to the long-legged trousers they wore. This was of course an intentional attempt to erase and replace the long-standing tradition of military academies that catered exclusively for the nobility and the wealthy.…

THIS MONTH we are looking at the latest, scroll-engraved version of the Beretta A400 semi-automatic: the A400L. The gun is 3in chambered for high-performance steel (as well as standard loads), and attractively stocked in what Beretta calls ‘Grade 2.5’ walnut. It weighs in at 7.8lb – midweight for a repeater – and was supplied by GMK of Fareham. The A400L under test is distinguished by its silver coin finish and enhanced action decoration. Semi-autos are not usually so adorned but this scheme pleases the eye without looking overdone. I tend to prefer plain repeaters but the A400L scrollwork, applied by laser, looks tasteful. The other detailing is good too. I liked the slim, blued-steel trigger-blade and finger-friendly (reversible) cross-bolt safety in front of it. The bolt release catch (also blued…

FOR MANY people, the concept of ‘trophy hunting’ conjures up images of white hunters grinning over the bodies of iconic African animals such as lions, leopards and elephants. Even many hunters who relish deerstalking in the UK find the thought of trophy hunting in Africa somewhat repugnant. It is perhaps one of the most contentious issues in international wildlife management and conservation today. The killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe in 2015 brought the practice to global attention and since then celebrity-backed campaigns have sought to have it banned. Here in the UK, there have been various efforts to legislate to prohibit the import of hunting trophies – rationalised as a conservation intervention but largely driven by populism as successive governments are warned that 90% of the British public…

Members of the Environmental Farmers Group (EFG) in the Hampshire Avon catchment area have established a new, on-farm water testing laboratory to monitor the health of the Bourne, one of the Avon’s tributaries. The farmers, who have received training in water sampling from the GWCT, are contributing to an understanding of how farming can contribute to nitrate, phosphate and sediment levels and how pollution can be reduced. Philip Harvey, along with his son Joe, runs Manor Farm – where the lab is located. “As farmers we are conscious of the need to look after the environment,” he said. “It is important to be able to distinguish between the impact of farming practices on the river from other sources of pollution, and like all farmers we are at the mercy of…

Anglers are celebrating after a Derbyshire council reversed its decision to forbid fishing from a lido [News, October issue]. Councillors on the North East Derbyshire District Council Environmental Scrutiny Committee agreed to proposals to lift the controversial ban at the Wingerworth Lido near Chesterfield. A public consultation saw 70% of respondents vote in favour of reinstating fishing. The committee has recommended that fishing can resume while a review is concluded into longer-term plans for the area. The anglers’ cause had been championed by organisations including the Countryside Alliance and the Angling Trust. The latter worked closely with the Clay Cross Angling Association, which has cared for the water for more than 25 years. “We systematically countered the anti-angling claims made with evidence and cold, hard facts,” said Jamie Cook, the…

PROPERTY is primed for gossip. Cotswolds pubs are seemingly full of Hollywood stars and other American A-listers clinking pewter tankards and wondering whether the pork scratchings were shorn from the pigs beyond their honeyed manor houses. The truth lies somewhere in between and, sure as pickled eggs are pickled eggs, estate agents are not going to name names, although it appears Beyonce and Jay-Z are buying acres in the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Burford, Chipping Norton and Stow-on-the-Wold. “Everywhere in the Cotswolds I pick up American accents; when I visit private members’ club Estelle Manor and on dog walks. It’s not quite the Gold Rush but it’s certainly a Cotswolds Rush,” says Lucy Joerin of Stowhill Estates, joking that “the closer you live to the Beckhams the more you pay for…

STEALTH WEALTH is a thing of the past. Today bling is the thing and with it comes innovation, colour and texture in gunmaking. From introducing vibrant shades into the engraving process to new enamelling techniques and metalwork that resembles elephant hide, you could be forgiven for thinking Englishmen are pimping their shotguns. But ask to see the guns’ guns on any driven shoot and it becomes clear they’re not here. These high-art guns – as they are most often called – are strictly collectibles. Their particular peculiarity is that they are firearms that are rarely (if ever) fired. When the high-art phenomena first took hold in the 1990s one gunmaker showed me a huge double rifle in a calibre designed for use in Mauser bolt-action guns. He explained to the…

FOLLOWING a year when completed Macnabs were as rare as grouse’s teeth, 2025 provided a bumper crop with 20 Macnabbers successfully taking their inspiration from John Buchan’s sporting trio: Palliser-Yeates, Leithen and Lamancha. From the Cairngorms to the Outer Hebrides and Canada, keen sportsmen chased fin, feather and fur with Buchan-esque derring-do. Macnabs were plentiful from the Angus Glens and Aberdeenshire throughout the season but success also spread to the isles and even further afield as autumn tightened its grip. Juan Toquero was the first successful Macnabber of the year, kicking off the sporting bonanza at Gannochy. Despite low water on the North Esk in the last week of August, Toquero’s perseverance and headkeeper Colin Lanyon’s advice paid off when he landed a six-pound salmon by 1pm on the third…

Sporting artist Under the hammer Royal Armouries Sporting dog The boot room Gun review Motoring Country queries Field to fork Gardening Cookery Wine Travel Books Fieldtesters The Last Hurrah For further information about artist Sam Sopwith, visit: samsopwith.com Her work can also be seen at the Osborne Studio Gallery (osg.uk.com) THE FIRST hurdle faced by many young artists is parental anxiety, with its ever-present requirement to have ‘something to fall back on’. But wildlife and equestrian artist Sam Sopwith’s father Tommy Sopwith was a noted powerboat and motor-car racer, and her mother Gina Hawthorn an Olympic skier, while her grandfather, Sir Thomas Sopwith, was the famed creator of the First World War Sopwith Camel aircraft. This all meant that Sopwith’s own choice to become a professional artist barely raised a…

I’M WRITING this in my study on a wet winter’s afternoon. It will be dark within the hour and my spaniel hasn’t had a walk since before breakfast. Should I be pulling on my boots and grabbing the lead and whistle? For many of us, dog walking is something we do regardless of the weather but whether it’s essential is questionable. Some years ago I took part in a written debate on dog walking with the late Guy Wallace. It was a subject on which he was well qualified to write, for he was a gundog trainer of renown and a former professional huntsman, while his CV included coursing salukis in Abu Dhabi and greyhounds in Argentina. Wallace claimed that he’d never taken a dog for a walk in his…

WOULD you ride in a driverless car? If the answer is ‘no’ you’re far from alone: fewer than a quarter of all road users say they would trust a driverless car or feel comfortable travelling in one. We’ll soon have the chance to decide for ourselves. Trials of ‘robotaxis’ will begin in London this spring, with two major new ventures competing to offer their rides through Uber. Waymo is an American company owned by Alphabet, the parent of Google, while Wayve is a British start-up and the brain-child of University of Cambridge engineers. Waymo is already operating in six cities in the US. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been startled, while standing outside my hotel in Santa Monica last year, to see a driverless car glide by. I immediately wanted…

ONE OF the most challenging things for a new gardener to learn – but it must be learned if she or he is going to get anything enjoyably worthwhile out of the hobby – is what is known as ‘botanical Latin’. This is what is used to name the 300,000-plus plants growing in gardens somewhere in this country. In fact, botanical Latin is a misnomer since it actually encompasses a mixture of Latin and ancient Greek, as well as the Latinisation of the names of people and places. Most gardeners stumble gradually into a working relationship with this language out of necessity because plant nurseries very sensibly don’t deal in common names. How much of the Classics you were taught at school (in my case, only enough to scrape an…

COUNTRY people, who know a good deal about these things, have a saying that gorse, like kissing, is always in season and it is not for me to doubt such authorities.’ So wrote WAB in a 1916 issue of The Field on the prickly subject of the ‘hello’ kiss. The bonhomie of the sporting field demands all manner of appropriate salutations. From an early age many youngsters will have had the words ‘good handshakes all round now’ impressed upon them but acceptable greetings range from back-slapping embraces with a close pal to the whiskery peck delivered by a beloved grandparent. These interactions can present a social gauntlet, the successful navigation of which requires some agility. Plumping for the wrong welcome could result in blushes, a transgression of good form or…

The Regional Moorland Groups have written to the next BBC director general calling for reform of the broadcaster’s rural coverage. This comes off the back of YouGov polling that revealed just 2% of adults believe the BBC represents rural areas ‘very accurately’. More than half (53%) of those living in the countryside believe that the Corporation relies on a narrow group of individuals and organisations when covering rural issues. These concerns were first raised in a BBC Trust review in 2014 but the Regional Moorland Groups state that the timing of this letter is very deliberate, citing the recent resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness over the editing of a speech by US President Donald Trump. They believe these demonstrate that ‘the BBC’s problems with bias are institutional, not…

NDC I’M NOT sure that anybody actually looks forward to February. Perhaps for the lucky few who glide seamlessly from their last drive of the season to their chalet in St Moritz, the month is full of anticipation. However, back in my Cresta days I used to feel a touch of FOMO [fear of missing out] when escaping a grey Blighty for the dazzling Engadine valley, as some of the best hunting would be happening back home. It was a racing certainty that the first Quorn Monday after one of these trips would be filled with tales of the screaming run away from Walton Thorns that I’d missed the previous week while slithering about on ice in some foreign place. Although it might be nice to get away from the endless…

SOME YEARS ago, while idly leafing through a sale catalogue of Victorian racing memorabilia, I came across a print by the sporting artist Archibald Preston Tilt. It depicted a ghostly figure aboard a spectral horse galloping across Newmarket Heath on a wild, moonlit night. The original, painted in 1887, was titled A Dream of the Past and inscribed with the verse ‘Across the heath along the course/’Tis said that now on phantom horse/The greatest jockey of our days/Rides nightly in the moonlit rays.’ The figure is Fred Archer, the most famous flat-race jockey of the 19th century who died tragically aged 29, and the horse Scotch Pearl, a retired racehorse and his favourite hack. Archer had been Champion Jockey for 13 consecutive years from 1874 until 1886, riding an astonishing…

WITH THE season at an end the desire to explore further afield often takes root. To satisfy that sporting wanderlust The Field has gathered together the most extraordinary and unusual of those lesser-known destinations that can provide the ultimate sporting expedition with shotgun, rifle or rod. Pheasants: Dominican Republic Pheasants are not gamebirds one associates with the Caribbean but there is something terrific about undertaking a familiar pastime in alien surroundings. The shooting at Casa de Campo on the western tip of the Hispaniola island is unique: combining luxury, adventure and meticulous hospitality. Guests begin their day at the resort where immaculate villas, ocean vistas and personalised service set the tone. “On the morning of the shoot, guests are transported by helicopter directly to the private shooting grounds – an…

AFTER A four-day jaunt to Florida, Steph Easterby (a regular with the Middleton, and one of our party of visiting ‘Brits’) wrote a note to our hosts: Adam and Jennifer Brown, both MFH, of the Palm Beach Hounds. In a few words, she sums up the trip perfectly: ‘My husband David would like to attempt to replicate your pulled pork recipe… might you send, as I only remember six hours on a low heat.’ Six hours’ sleep on a very low heat (the weather in the ‘Sunshine State’ was inclement and atypical for Florida) was the order of each day. This whirlwind trip took in a visit to the $3m (£2.3m) Pegasus World Cup race at Gulfstream Park with Francesca Cumani, in addition to as much sunbathing and cocktailing as…

THERE COMES a point in everyone’s life when joining a club seems a particularly good idea. Dedicated folk are prepared to put their name on an incredibly long waiting list, biding time patiently for an existing member to keel over and vacate a space. Others scurry around hoping to secure a worthy proposer and seconder for their membership before paying a handsome joining fee. Yet for some, membership of a club is not sought but forced upon them by providence. During the Second World War a Fleet Air Arm pilot on operations against the Germans distinguished himself not once but twice as a member of the Goldfish Club; literally ditching his aircraft both times in the sea and surviving to tell the tale. Chris Cartledge, who died in 2024 at…

TUCKED away at the foot of Glen Lyon stands The Fortingall hotel, in a picture-perfect village of the same name, amid fertile grazing a few hundred metres from the River Lyon. Wrought-iron, Victorian street lamps line the narrow road through the settlement, heralding the style of welcome that lies ahead. Although the hotel feels off the beaten track, it is only a two-hour drive from both Edinburgh and Inverness, and even offers helicopter transfers to convey you from the former in just 25 minutes. This 10-bedroom hotel was built by the shipping magnate, politician and philanthropist Sir Donald Currie, who bought the village in 1885 and commissioned the celebrated architect James Maclaren to design the hotel. Thoroughly renovated under the direction of new owner Charlie Ramsay, whose family owns the…

Across 1 Tall non-native spruce tree – ask it to move! (5) 4 Protected ferret relative with bandit-like appearance (7) 8 Carbonated water – last half of Calvados turned over! (4) 9 Epsom ___, ‘Blue Riband of the Turf’ (5) 10 Nose-over-___, a shooting stance (4) 11 Songbirds’ boisterous pranks? (8) 12 Landowner’s den at end of road? (5) 13 Scottish breed of setter, traditionally black and tan (6) 15 She’s a British Olympic trap shot and World Cup medallist (4,4) 18 Deadly toxic toadstool: upset a chap, Ted! (5,3) 21 The lateral gait of horses in harness racing – wild pig can! (6) 23 Bullish sound (6) 26 Latin term for the deer family – read ‘vice’ perhaps! (8) 28 Sunken parkland boundary giving an uninterrupted view (2-2) 29 Bird droppings used as fertiliser (5) 30 Bird of prey flown…