Mike, I noticed that too. However, thinking about it I find myself picking out the higher, better flying birds when I'm shooting driven birds that are coming over in numbers.
The reason is that I am given the choice and prefer to test myself against the more sporting birds, provided they are in range for me and my gun. Most guns I know also select the birds they shoot at. The lower birds are considered less sporting and we clearly don't wish to ruin their eating by 'blasting' them, if you follow my meaning!
In Dave Carrie's case I guess he is being selective in the same way, just that his skill base is considerably greater than mine!
On the question of cartridge to kill ratios, I too have found on a normal driven bird shoot (bags of around 100 birds) 1:3 is usual. On one shoot we keep annual records and the average over the last ten years is just under that ratio.
Tim
