Foxglove - February 24

This means that every available day is given over to ferreting: on the downs, in the weald, private gardens, farms and shoots and other places.

The bitter weather has slowed the approach of spring, but snowdrops and crocuses are already out, and we do not have much longer to work the main areas, though we will be able to pick at odd places here and there for some time longer.

Ferrets will be in breeding fettle soon, which means they do not have their minds on their work, and I suspect that my main working dog will also be on heat before long.

All those hormones make for capriciousness in formerly hard-working animals, and this is showing in today's task, where the dog, normally very efficient, just cannot seem to concentrate.

Last time we ferreted here, the ground was frozen hard and we could not peg the nets properly, but today, though the wind is bitter and the clouds ominous, the ground is only thinly crusted with frost.

We have netted a long line of buries, some of which we suspect may be connected, and have five ferrets to ground.

Though they live in adjacent courts, or maybe because they do, two of them are at odds with the other three, and instead of chasing rabbits they are prone to chasing each other.

A thin veil of tiny ice pellets swirls across in the wind as we stand, hands in pockets, and wait for something to happen.

Periodically, a ferret appears at the mouth of a rabbit hole and then ducks back under.

The dog paces here and there, stopping to listen with her head on one side, staring hard at the ground.

Balanced on her thin elegant legs, she is ready to leap in any direction to catch and hold a departing rabbit until one of us can get to her to take it.

She does not kill them: that is not her job. She shows us where the rabbits are, where the ferrets are, when the rabbit is likely to bolt and from where, and then she holds the netted rabbit until we can take it.

If a rabbit slips the net, she chases it, and if she manages to catch it, she brings it back to me.

Mostly she is very efficient, but today her mind seems not on what she should be doing, and she is a little slow after some of the rabbits.

Maybe she is just tired, for she has worked hard over the past few weeks. She is due four days off after today, so she can have a good rest.

The line of rabbits we have put by the side of the track is getting longer. It spoils the flesh if they are stacked up, so we lie them down neatly where air can get to them.

If there are trees we can hang them up, but there are no trees here. We are mostly bolting buck rabbits, big ones with good winter coats and plenty of weight, but they are full of fleas. It makes us itch just thinking about it.

They are bolting in ones and twos, nice and steadily, though just as I think that, two bolt together and I have the vision of each one suspended in its net by the draw-cord, hanging in the air for a brief surreal moment before the dog catches one and my colleague the other.

The last bury holds four, and as I deal with them, I keep an eye on my colleague, who is digging a very deep hole to a ferret that is holding its rabbit underground.

He reaches so far in that only his legs are visible, but he gets the ferret out safely and the rabbit it was with.

We decide to call it a day then, for the ferrets and dog have worked hard, and snow is now sweeping across the plain, to lodge in the nets and our clothing, and remind us that, crocuses or not, winter still has a way to go yet.