That’s another Sunday morning with no lie-in!  Hunters shooting in the early hours.  What are they shooting at now?  From September to the beginning of December we know it is rabbits on a Sunday morning – a notice is, supposedly, distributed to everybody telling them to keep their dogs inside until 1pm.  A funny sight before this type of hunting is a tractor dropping off tomatoes for the rabbits to feed off…..  But at this time of year we do not hear the hunters dogs, so maybe they are looking for partridge – or is it flying birds?

You need a licence to hunt in Portugal and the rules are that it they are not allowed to shoot within 250 metres of a house/garden walls or within 500 metres of animals.  One Sunday during the rabbit season last year, I heard loud rock music playing close by – investigation was needed.  There, only 100 metres away from the house, 25 metres from the animals, was a lone hunter – on being questioned he said he could not see the animals???  So, a blind hunter with a gun maybe ………, probably keeping warm with the local firewater and playing music to frighten the rabbits out of their holes.

Only in Portugal (or maybe southern Europe).