Halcyon mood shattered by a single shot

Poppit Sands, Pembrokeshire Greenland whitefronts come from the cold north to overwinter here, and run the gauntlet of "sportsmen", their blued barrels loaded with deadly ejaculate

Along the dune-path, sloes and haws hung from thorn thickets, late flowers grew in profusion: bladder campion, herb robert, guelder rose, colonies of evening primrose, michaelmas daisies, clotted blooms of faded meadowsweet, rustling dry spikes of ladies' tresses. By stepping stones marking the change of spring-fed stream to saltwater rhyne, a kingfisher burst from the reeds, whirred low above the water, its flash of orange and azure in brilliant contrast to mud banks between which a little egret, infinitely graceful of form, stalked on yellow feet and stabbed down with dark dagger beak. Skeins of geese calling plangently wheeled high overhead before gliding down to net-pools upriver of perilous Cardigan Bar: Canada geese and Greenland whitefronts come from the cold north to overwinter here, and run the gauntlet of "sportsmen", their blued barrels loaded with deadly ejaculate, against whom the Welsh government affords this declining and lovely waterfowl scant protection.

Related: Country diary: Talsarnau, Gwynedd: Alarm call from the plover, as the wildfowling season approaches